Regrets et Régression
by Inks Inc
Summary: He'd never set out to be perfect. He knew he could never be perfect. But he thought he could at least be better than what had come before him, better than what the cards had dealt Tony at birth. But, as it turns out, he was no better. He was no damned better at all. He was even worse. He'd given hope, only to snatch it right back. *WARNING: Non-Con Spanking/Flashbacks to Abuse*
1. Chapter 1

The spreading rage was so visceral, so all-consuming, that it burned like acid on his tongue. The Conference Room was deathly quiet as Tony stared back at him with real and true fear splashed across his face. But he was gone past the point of seeing that terror, he was gone past the point of seeing anything, let alone the most basic of reason. All he could see was the disobedience, the flagrant lying and the downright idiocy of the actions in question. It all burned into his brain like molten iron and his blood pressure sky rocketed as he put all the pieces together. The sneaking around, the deceit, the unparralled insubordination. The danger, the near catastrophe that had been so narrowly avoided. He was, for the first time in a very long time, positively shaking in anger. The red mist that had been drummed out of him in the Marines was descending slowly over his eyes, as if Satan himself was working the pulley, grinning his demonic smile with every squeaking turn.

His heart hammered with the effort of pumping the burning ire throughout his body.

It had been only fifty one seconds since the end of Tony's stammering admission and apology had stuttered around the room. But it had been the longest fifty one seconds in DiNozzo's life, whereas for Gibbs, only a split second had passed. The red mist was nearly all the way down and all he could see was the outrageous disobedience that had led to perilous danger. The fact that Tony was standing in front of him, alive and unscathed, was a miracle he was in no frame of mind to appreciate. The elastic band that was his temper control was stretching and stretching as he stared unseeingly at his senior agent. His blood was sloshing furiously in his ears as his breathing caught in his chest. In a more rational frame of mind, he would know that it was fear that drove his rage. Fear of burying one of his own. But he was in no rational frame of mind. He was losing it. The elastic band was stretching and straining until it could stretch and strain no more.

All of a sudden, it snapped.

He didn't see Tony step back in confusion and shock as he stormed towards him, one hand undoing his belt as he barrelled forwards. He didn't even hear his bewildered squawk of "Boss? What are you doing…no, no wait. What are you….Boss!" He barely felt his hand encase Tony's upper arm in a dangerously vice like grip. He was an auto pilot as he bodily and easily pushed him with brute force over the Conference Room table with all the delicacy one would treat a rag doll with. He didn't hear the panicked pleas as he applied military style restraining pressure on the small of the back he would usually place a gentle hand upon. He didn't care to acknowledge the frantic squirming that was a first time occurrence from Tony, other then to robotically end it with brute and detached force.

The first crack of the belt was deafening, it sliced the air like wildfire.

The intense squirming and panic stricken pleading instantly ceased. Not that he noticed. He didn't even register that Tony suddenly froze like a statue under his hand and not a single word or gasp of pain escaped him. He became instantly and terrifyingly rigid. Rigid and silent. The blood was still crashing against his ears as his complete loss of control continued to play out. The belt rose and fell like a conductor's baton. The cracking of the belt echoed around the room, but the usual corresponding yelps and grunts of pain did not. With his face uncomfortably pressed into the cool wooden surface, Tony completely and utterly shut down. The pain registered as much as it always did, but he found no physical or emotional response to give. He was somewhere else, far away from his adult self and far away from the Conference Room C at NCIS' headquarters.

He was far, far away.

The whipping was just that, a whipping. Gibbs had worn him out more times than either could quantify, but never like this. Never, ever like this. The application of the belt was frenzied, dripping with unbridled anger. It was a beating. For the first time in his life, Gibbs was beating him. Not with the intent to correct and to teach, but with the spitting desire to wound, to agonise. But it was ok, he wasn't there. He had learned a long, long time ago to not be there. He was somewhere else. He hadn't been to this place in a long, long time but it was as familiar as ever. It was home.

And then, as suddenly and terrifyingly as it had started, it stopped.

The painful hold on his back and right arm was released and the air that had been compressed into his lungs seeped slowly out. He didn't move, he couldn't move. He just lay motionless. He was in absolute agony, but that was ok. He knew how to deal with that. And he deserved it. He always deserved it, always had. It was entirely his own fault. All his own fault, his own doing. No tears had fallen from his eyes, they weren't even wet. He knew better than that, had learned a long time to never, ever cry. That only made things worse. His ribs ached from the pressure that had been exerted upon the back of his torso, but that was ok too. It would go away in about two hours. Maybe a little longer now, what with his lungs and all, but it would go away. He continued to lay there apathetically, his world no longer his.

He could see the deadened green hue in his eyes looking back at him from the highly polished oak, a mere fraction of an inch from his nose. His breathing was a little laboured, but he knew that would ease up in a while. Besides, it was nothing he hadn't brought upon himself. As he lay there, his world view changing forever, a clashing noise jerked him out of his pensive reverie. It was the sound of the Conference Room door opening roughly and slamming shut. He blinked. He was alone now. And as he lay there in his puddle of pain, a fact hit him like a sharpened spear to the soul.

He had never been more alone.

….

A/N: Ok, so like I've said in a few other stories, I don't like my Gibbs to be this perfect, Mary Sue character. In the show he's as flawed as it gets, so it's cool to translate that into stories. I've been toying with the idea of a "Gibbs completely loses it with one of the team and does something unthinkable" story for a while and this is what I've gone with. Originally, I had Tim instead of Tony in this one, but Tony then seemed to work better. Probably be a four chapter fic. I will rectify the two, in time! Promise! _Inks

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	2. Chapter 2

It was during his third and failed attempt to stand that the door opened once more. He froze with fear, not daring to look up at the entrant. Eye contact was always something that seemed to provoke, best to keep his eyes downcast and hope that he would simply go away. Sometimes that worked but more times it did not. His breaths came out in raspy gasps as the physical pain from his beating soared upwards in response to the change in gravity. He wobbled, his core shaken. Soft hands suddenly grasped him then, a low voice murmuring gently but with an odd sense of fire at their heart. A terrible trail of hope ignited in him then. Hope was the most potent of all poisons, it killed you slowly and softly, taking it's time. But he could not help it. He had always hoped for more, for better. So he allowed himself the foolish emotion as he slowly lifted his eyes upwards in response to the kind hands that held him upright. He came back. He must have come back. Gibbs always came back. But…Gibbs never left in the first place, not usually. Of course he'd driven him to it, but he'd _come back._ He'd come back for him.

"Look at me," the voice urged, "Look at me."

With a final flick, the deadened green eyes reached a normal level and the tsunami of devastation instantly sprayed with a fearsome foam, drenching Tony in the realisation that he really had lost everything. He gazed unfocusedly on the pale face, unable to form even the simplest of sentences. It was not Gibbs. He had not come back. He was still all alone. The blackness descended as a terrified Dr Mallard ran a medical gaze over him, acutely and accurately discerning what had happened. His stomach plummeted. He had heard of Anthony's latest escapade and rightly surmised that Jethro would be beside himself. He had been ready to offer his old friend a stiff drink after he had sensibly dealt with his incorrigible agent. Thinking it odd that Jethro and Anthony were still absent after his third speculative trip to the empty bull pen, he had decided to investigate the Conference Room. Not to interfere, but merely to provide comfort. He had been nearly at the door when it was ripped violently opened and a positively demonic looking Gibbs had stormed out, slamming the door viciously behind him.

In that moment and that moment alone, Ducky knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.

And now he stood with a broken looking Anthony and no words were needed. He knew what had happened, knew what had happened was the worst possible thing that could have happened. Gibbs, for the first time, had completely lost it with his man. He had seen that look of drawn, pale rage on his friend's face only a handful of times and each time was a catastrophic incident. But as he gently propelled an ashen, stumbling Anthony from the room, he correctly sensed that this incident…was the most catastrophic of all. In truth, Ducky didn't know how he managed to get them both down to his lab. He was too wrapped up in desperate concern for the young man and for his part; Tony didn't even know he was moving anywhere. He was in a completely different place, different time. In truth, had there been a crisis within the agency, he wouldn't have even known he was an agent, let alone be in a position to do anything. He was completely…broken.

By the time Ducky had the thickest cushion he owned on the stool he placed the boy on, he was livid.

But he pushed that from his mind. He had more important things to attend to. It wasn't all that clear to him that Tony was not physically hurt anywhere else but his posterior, his breathing was laboured. That, for Timothy, he could rack up to shock. But Anthony wasn't in possession of stellar lungs. Placing the stethoscope he had rooted out in his ears, Ducky leant down in front of Tony and placed a warm hand on his knee. "Anthony, dear boy…I need to check your breathing so I have to lift your shirt. Is that ok?" No answer. The kid merely stared directly over his head, seeing something that Ducky could not. Something terrible, something the doctor had an inkling of, making his own blood run cold. Taking a steadying breath, he carefully unbuttoned the crisp white shirt, ready to snatch his hands away at the slightest sign of panic from his impromptu patient. But none came, if anything, Tony became even more distantly lethargic.

Ducky, for the first time in a long time, cursed fluently in rage under his breath.

He had switched round to examine Tony's back, his heart rate being erratic. And what he saw there…set his blood alight. The makings of one hell of a bruise was spotting, currently in the shape of a large hand print, over the broad back. What kind of strength must Gibbs have used to hold the boy down to leave that kind of a marking? Steam seemed to condense upon his glasses as Ducky gaped at the mark, hardly willing to believe it. But there was no lying about what it was and where it had come from. Tony made no movement as he ran a physicians hand over the red skin, he was still so far away. Ducky's soul iced over. That sort of exertion on less than impressive lungs would have given Tony the sensation of suffocating, of drowning. He would have been unable to catch his breath and yet… _Jethro_ had merely continued to…do what he had done. Pulling the shirt down slowly, Ducky closed his eyes and counted to ten before facing the boy again. It would not do to transfer any of his emotions to his patient; he was already in so much pain. Looping his stethoscope over his shoulders, he pottered quickly and whipped up a strong, hot cup of tea.

Tony accepted it mechanically, without even looking at it or the man pressing it into his hands.

Cradling the cup, he was in a state of complete dissociation. Logically he knew the mug was warm and that his hands were consuming that heat, but he could not feel it. He could feel nothing. Not the beat of his heart or the stool beneath him. Nothing. There was an oddly terrible occurrence taking place in his head, a twisted mash-up of sorts. A weird hybrid of his father's body and Gibbs' head, and then Gibbs' body and his father's head…Gibbs and his father arriving to his childhood home, drunk and in search of a fight. The cupboard he had hid in, the familiar smell of expensive clothes and wanton neglect lingering in every corner. The cupboard door became the Conference Room door but he was still eight, not thirty eight. The lines of reality blurred and his hands trembled, holding the drink he knew to be there but could not know to be there. Suddenly, it was taken from him and he felt an odd sense of longing. He had in a way accepted the cup as being a part of him, and now without warning, it was gone.

Doctor or not, Ducky was beginning to panic.

He could not reach Anthony, could not pull him back into the present. They had never discussed the boy's past but the M.E. had easily put the pieces together over the years and created a pretty accurate, pretty repulsive, version of the agent's childhood. He knew he was there now, knew he was detached from his current being. A survival technique no doubt crafted and perfected in what was meant to be the most carefree season of his young life. He could not stay there, in that false limbo. Ducky knew that, knew that it would do more harm than good the longer Tony ran away within himself. The return to reality was always hardest after a lengthy walk in surrealism. Just as he was about to take the risk of once again laying a gentle hand upon his patient, something snapped within Tony. Something shifted within him and the effects were widespread and instantaneous.

And terrifying.

Swinging back into himself, a grin spread across Tony's face and he rose from the stool with as much ease as his abused behind allowed for. "Hey there Duck man," he greeted jovially, his eyes a decaying field of green in comparison to his manufactured grin, "I guess I spaced out there for a minute. Had a bit of a heavy night, you know how it is." He winked and as the truth of what he was seeing hit the doctor, an impossible sadness radiated throughout him. This was the mask Tony had chosen. The adult survival technique. "Anthony, dear boy, please sit. We need to talk about what happened with…Jethro. I think you need to-" Tony's dismissive wave of the hand cut him off. "Nothing to talk about Ducky. The old man wore me out, sure, but I had it coming. Nothing new now is it?" He laughed, a terrible sound of forced and faux reassurance. "The whole Agency probably knows what I did by now, I'm lucky he didn't fire me." He looked into the distance for a moment and spoke quietly, almost to himself.

"Good old Gibbs huh? I'm lucky to have him…I guess."

Ducky's eyes widened.

"Anthony, I didn't need to see what happened to _know_ what happened. Jethro, he…well he's just _abused_ you. You can't-"

Tony's eyes suddenly hardened and he looked at Ducky with a near menacing glow.

"The hell he did. You shut your mouth Ducky, I mean it. He didn't abuse me, you don't know what you're talking about. You weren't there. I deserved it, I always deserve it. If you value our friendship even one bit you will not repeat that madness to anyone else. I pushed him, alright? I'm always setting him off, annoying him. Is it any wonder he got a little…is it any wonder? It's like that time I broke the dynasty vase in the hall. He kept telling and telling me to stop running in the house, but did I listen? He was just trying to have a quiet drink…or two. And I was ruining it. Same thing as today, I never listen to him. It's my own fault, not his. He's so tired…running all those businesses, he doesn't have the time for me. I shouldn't make it harder…shouldn't have broken the vase…."

He suddenly shook his head as if were physically trying to shake the thoughts from his mind. The plastered smile suddenly returned to his face and he gave a stiffly nonchalant shrug. "Anyhow Ducky, I gotta run. It's past knocking off time and I have a hot date tonight. Thanks for the tea." The doors had barely swallowed him up when Ducky hurled into the nearby wastepaper bin. He hadn't had a hope in stopping him, or preventing the hot vomit from escaping his gut. Wiping his mouth with a shaking hand, he felt a balloon of hopeless sadness burst within him. He spoke to himself but the words radiated throughout the entire lab, dripping with rage and disappointment.

"Well…you've really gone and done it now, Jethro haven't you? You've really gone and done it."

….

A/N: This is weirdly horrifying and yet nicely challenging to write. Quick heads up: There's not gonna have a quick reconcile between Gibbs and Tony, the former's gonna have to work like a dog for it. But they will reconcile, eventually!

_Inks

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	3. Chapter 3

The bull-pen was empty, save for a vacantly staring and desk-sitting Gibbs, but the space could have been playing host to the Superbowl and the palely grim Ducky would have conducted himself in the exact same manner. His eyes were flashing behind his quaint glasses as he stormed towards his old friend's desk, with rage and shock in his heart. Landing in front of the desk with all the grace of a drunken sailor, he suddenly understood why so many people were so anti-gun. Because if he had one in that moment, things could have gown very steeply downhill, very fast. The team-lead didn't look up at his abrupt appearance, he was sat rigidly still and staring with an oddly unfocussed intensity at the wall in front of him. Clearing his throat dryly and receiving no response, Ducky growled and rapped smartly upon the desk. Still nothing. In any normal circumstance, this would have caused alarm to the kindly doctor, but this was no normal circumstance. He felt no intrigue, no compassion or worry. Only a cold and growing fury.

"Are you in the land of the living or should I order up a body bag?"

The sound of his low and gravelly voice seemed to snap Gibbs from his reverie. Glancing blankly up at his friend, he shook his head as if trying to empty water from his ears. "Huh?" he mumbled, sitting up straighter and pulling his eyes away from the dangerously orange walls. "You say something? How'd you get here, Duck?" Eyes widening in increasing ire, Ducky slammed his hand down upon the desk once more. "Yes, Jethro, I said something. I was enquiring as to your well being, not that I give a horse's ass. But unfortunately, you do need to be alive if you are ever to make things even a fraction of the right they were before, though I must say, the prognosis is not good. It is not good at all." He stood to his full height, which although rather portly, was immensely intimidating in that moment. Gibbs' head moved backwards to take him in, the same gormless expression still etched upon his face. He looked drunk, out of it.

"Duck? What…what are you talking about?"

His voice was almost slurred, the syllables tumbling over themselves as they dripped lazily from the slack mouth. Dr Mallard's jaw tightened as he stared down at his borderline conscious friend. "What am I talking about?" he repeated silkily, dangerously. " _What am I talking about?"_ He moved closer, stiff with disgust. "I am talking about the fact that you have done something so despicable that I can hardly bear to lay my eyes upon you. I am talking about the fact that you have committed such an egregious betrayal of trust that I am ashamed and embarrassed to call you a friend. I am talking about the fact that you abused your position of authority and trust and in doing so, have set a very dear young man on a very dangerous, destructive path. I am talking about that fact that you have just _physically_ and _emotionally abused_ your own protégé. That is what I am talking about. Does that clear things up for you, Jethro, hmm? Is it all coming back to you now? The way you held him down with brute force, a force so military that you damaged the boy's soft tissue?"

His teeth ground in his jaw.

"Do you remember that? Because the bruise that is on Anthony's back isn't something that is going to fade anytime soon. But that's the least of your concerns, if you are concerned that is. That's certainly something that is up for debate. But the scars on that lad's mind and soul are irreparable, they're inoperable. Cancerous, no cure available. Did you know that when you did what you did? Did you know about the can of worms you were going to unleash, and simply did not care? I asked myself this, I really pondered upon it. But then I realised, of course you did. Anthony confided in you as to the horrors in his past. He trusted you with that information, let his guard down and let you in. A momentous achievement for him. And in repaying him for that vote of trust, of confidence, you took what was given and turned it into something dreadful, something horrifying. You took that trust and you mutilated it, abused it. You abused that trust every bit as badly as you physically abused your right hand man."

He took a step back, physically repulsed to be in a gawping Gibbs' presence.

He looked borderline comatose.

"Just a heads up. Anthony blames himself for what you did to him, a classic abuse victim's perspective. That perspective is all the more profound in relationships where a glimmer of kindness is shown, only to be replaced by cruelty and neglect. So I suppose you have both aspects of your relationship with young Anthony covered, you must be ever so proud. I digress, my main point is this, you have damaged him. The physical marks will heal before the emotional wounds have even begun to fester, but fester they will Jethro. You may think that, when you actually come out of your little apathetic pity party, that a few kind and gruff words will undo this. A steak over the fire and a beer over a movie. But I tell you this here Jethro and I tell you this now, I deeply doubt whether there is any fixing this. I do not think the relationship you had with Anthony can ever be what it was, I do not think it can ever reach that peak of trust and respect again. There are some cracks that cannot be repaired and I very much suspect this is one of them."

He cleared his throat.

"You were in that moment, his father. I am not going to spare your feelings on the matter. I tell you Jethro that I did not need to be in the room to know exactly what happened within those walls. Anthony, in that terrible moment and moments, did not see you as you. He saw you as his father. The pain you inflicted upon him was the pain of his childhood at his father's hands. I spoke to him, after you left him in a state that I cannot comprehend, and I will never forget the words that came out of that boy's mouth. I will never forget the look on his face. He was a small child in a young man's body and I have never felt such empathetic pain in all my days. He was a broken man, Jethro. And you….you _bastard…._ you are the one who broke him. Instead of being the one to protect him, you broke him."

He sucked in a deep breath, the uncharacteristic cussing being a non-issue in that moment.

"And he will never forget it. He is an unfalteringly kind man, with no real appreciation of his self worth, so I fear he _will_ forgive you. But he will never forget you; never forget what you are capable of. Never forget who you can become. He will always have the memory of today in the deepest corners of his brain and soul and he will always have that fear in his bones, the fear of reoccurrence. I hope you live every day of your life knowing that. Knowing that you took him from under your wing and threw him on a bonfire. Knowing that you failed to protect him, protect him from yourself. I hope you know it in the morning and I hope you know it in the night. I hope you never look at him without knowing what you have done." He moved then, away from the green tinged Gibbs and towards the elevator. It was unlike the doctor to speak before he thought, but speaking before thinking he was and he regretted not a word of it. Before he turned his back on a sweating, barely breathing and only moderately conscious Gibbs, he issued one parting barb. And it was the one, even amongst the burning vitriol he had already espoused, that burned the most viciously of all.

"That boy was your second chance at being a father and look at what you've done with it."

….

TBC

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	4. Chapter 4

Angry red welts.

Line after line of them, the exact width of a thick leather belt, applied in a furious frenzy.

They stood out in vividly emblazoned stripes, raising the surface of the tender skin of his aching behind. Hissing, Tony bit his lip and tenderly rubbed in some of the cold cream he had pooled in his hand. The soothing effect was instantaneous and his eyes fluttered in relief. But no cold cream was going to soothe the ache in his soul. Throwing the tub on the sofa and shuffling over to the kitchen sink, kicking his slacks off as he went, his innards screamed with grief. How he had got home, he didn't know. But got home he had, desperately needing to shut himself away. Rinsing off his hands and splashing some cold water on his face, he leant over the kitchen sink and screwed his eyes shut. Droplets of water dripped from his pale face onto his cotton blue shirt, seeping into the fabric. Opening his eyes, Tony clutched the sides of the kitchen basin, unsure of what to do. When he felt like this, not that he had felt like this in a long, long time, but when he felt _close_ to this…he went to Gibbs'. Of course, that was out of the question now. He had already put the man through so much stress, he could hardly justify landing on his doorstep to ruin his afternoon.

No, he would just stay where he was. Alone. Where he ought to be, deserved to be.

The pain screeched back into action as he made his way stiffly to the sofa, collapsing face first upon it. His back hurt, his ass hurt, his heart hurt. Everything hurt. The TV flickered silently in the corner of the room as he lay there in a near cationic state, the nonsensical sitcom reflected in his deadened eyes. Late afternoon turned to early evening, the sky steadily darkening outside his window, and still he lay there. His cell rang and rang, but it was in his pants pocket and even if he could brave the pain to retrieve it, he didn't have the will. The scene in the Conference Room played out over and over again in his head like a sick, self flagellating home video. Why did he have to push Gibbs all the time? Why could he never just do as he was told? Why did he always have to be a smart ass? No wonder the Boss had lost it with him, it was about time. He'd had it coming for a long, long time and it was really a credit to Gibbs that he held out on thrashing him for so long. His own father would have skinned him alive years ago, let him know his place. He had forgotten his place, that's what it was. He'd begun to think he was important, that he mattered. That kind of stupid arrogance, second nature to him, always ended one way.

With him all on his own wondering why he was the way he was, an unredeemable screw up.

He wondered if Gibbs would ever be able to forgive him or if he would eventually have to pack up his desk and find some other team to burden. He knew he'd gone too far this time. Knew Gibbs was sick to his back teeth of him, but he couldn't quite extinguish the glimmer of hope that was now the only real light in his darkened apartment. Maybe, if he was good enough, he could have another chance. Like the summer he'd spent making himself as invisible as possible, only sneaking down at night time to grab some food from the refrigerator, spending his days' doing as much around the house as possible, as quietly as possible. His father had seemed happy with him then and by the time school came around again, he'd even taken him out to lunch…

Well, he'd had the maid take him out to lunch…but still, he'd acknowledged his existence. He'd even given him a cursory pat on the head when the car came to take him back to boarding school. Maybe…maybe it could be like that with Gibbs, too. If he slowly and silently made himself as useful but invisible as possible, maybe…just maybe Gibbs would give him one more chance. It was that faint hope that eventually carried him off to a fitful sleep, fraught with flashing and violent images. When morning came, his aches were even worse. Moving with a hiss and with considerable stiffness, he managed to stumble into the shower. Letting the hot water spurt over him, he couldn't suppress the yelp as it cascaded down his tattered backside. Twisting his head to assess the welts in the morning light, he winced. They were going to bruise. They were going to bruise badly.

Something twisted inside him. Gibbs…he'd never bruised him before. He'd been bruised many, many times before. But never by Gibbs. Never by him. Squeaking the water off, he shook his head. He should have done it earlier, Gibbs, he should have done it earlier. If he had dealt with him earlier, if he'd bruised him, he might have actually learned his lesson and his place in life and on the team. His father had always said that he never learned the easy way and that he brought the hard way on himself, being too stupid to learn things the simple way, and he was right. Gingerly drying and dressing himself, he left the apartment early. He'd get in before his time and get a head start on his paperwork, maybe swing by Gibbs' favourite coffee shop and get him his morning brew as a way of apologising for making him do what he'd had no choice but to do. Yeah, that seemed like a good idea. An hour or so later saw him alone in the bullpen, with Gibbs due in around fifteen minutes, his coffee awaiting him on his desk. Pressing a hand over his mouth to hide the wince as he sat down, Tony kicked his computer into gear and pulled a stack of overdue files towards him.

Day one of being the best, nondescript and silent Agent possible was a-go.

Gibbs sat in his car in the employee parking lot with the taste of vomit still burning in his mouth. He'd tried and tried to muster up the courage and sensibility to go to Tony last night, but he just couldn't. He didn't even call. Ducky's words burned in his brain, growing louder and louder with every passing minute. After his old friend had lambasted him in the bull pen, he'd stumbled home in a daze, trying to make sense of what he'd done. He'd called Ducky a few hours later, in desperate need of assistance. But for the first time in the history of their friendship, the doctor had in no uncertain terms told him to go to hell, but not to bring Tony with him. He could still here the clicking of the phone as Ducky had slammed down his receiver, signalling a night of no sleep and self loathing. Looking up at the imposing building, he dropped his head into his hands and groaned. There was an impossible pain in his gut. The guilt was an acidic, burning kind of guilt, corroding everything that stood in its way.

He had never in his entire life hated himself as much as he hated himself now.

Knowing he could put it off no longer, he stiffly climbed from the car and made his way into the building. His slacks were loose around his hips, having blanched as he'd mechanically picked up his belt that morning, knowing what he had done with it. It was now in the trash, where he belonged too. Swallowing, he rode the elevator with dread climbing in him like rising potassium. He didn't know what in the good hell he was going to do, how in the hell he was going to make things right. A part of him knew that things could never be right again, but he pushed away that part. The thought of his relationship with Tony being damaged beyond repair being too much for him to countenance. Stepping out of the lift, grateful to have the bull pen to himself as always, he strode towards his team's section. It was then that he saw the dark shadow behind the desk, just beginning to be bathed in the fledgling morning sun.

His heart thudded painfully in his chest.

Closing his eyes for the briefest of moments, he took a staggeringly deep breath and made his way over to Tony's desk. He braced and left himself completely open to any attack. He would happily have allowed the kid to beat him senseless for what he had done to him. He couldn't quite remember the heinous situation clearly, it came back to him as if under a dense smog. But he remembered slamming Tony down over the desk and whipping him without control or mercy. Something he had never done before in his entire life. How he was ever going to learn to live with himself, he didn't know. First and foremost, he had to give Tony the opportunity to knock his teeth out. Where they went from there, he had no clue. He saw the sandy head rise up from a teetering pile of paperwork, the same unfinished paperwork he'd been screeching about a mere day or so ago. He walked the last three steps to Tony's desk and braced himself unsuccessfully for the hatred and anger he expected to see and the broken nose he expected to receive.

But all he got was a beaming smile.

"Morning, Boss!" Tony greeted brightly, "There's coffee on your desk. I'm just closing out these cases like you wanted and because we have no active investigation, I'm searching through any cold cases that show potential for reopening. I took the liberty of opening and responding to your emails, I hope you don't mind, I just know how much you hate…emails. Oh, and the Director sent a memo demanding we all attend a refresher course on interrogation skills, but I sent him a note rescheduling for another time because I know how you hate refresher courses." The dazzling smile didn't match the wide and terrified eyes, it didn't even seem to belong to the same face. "If there's anything else I can do, you'll let me know won't you?" The wounded eyes took on an almost imploring quality as they widened with eagerness. "You will, won't you? Let me know if there's anything else I can do?"

If Gibbs' men were routinely to drop dead from shock, Jethro would be stone cold dead.

"Tony," he croaked, his voice sounding nothing at all like his own. "Tony…what are you…." He shook his head and leant over the desk slightly. His heart splintered into a hundred thousand pieces when Tony took an involuntary, almost spastic, leaning back, fear dancing like mocking flames in his eyes. Feeling the intense urge to vomit, Gibbs closed his eyes for a moment. "Tony, we have to talk about what happened yesterday. About what…about what I did to you." He opened his eyes and focussed them on a pale, clammy and nothing at all like himself, Agent DiNozzo. "We need to talk about how I…" his voice broke, but he continued on with the greatest effort it had ever taken him "abused you…how I beat you…and what we're going to do about that."

Tony's eyes bulged.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Boss," he deflected with a devastating attempt at consolation. "You didn't abuse me. You punished me and I've never deserved it more." He looked up at the panic stricken Gibbs and smiled reassuringly. "You did only what you had to do, Boss, I don't know how you've put up with me this long as it is, never mind putting up with the stunt I pulled. But…you'll give me another chance, right?" The urgent, frantic look was back in his eyes. "You'll give me one more chance to prove that I can get it right, right? You're not going to…I don't have to go somewhere else, do I? Because I swear, Boss, I swear…it'll never happen again. You can even give me another hiding if you want, I get it. I deserve it. But…I can stay, right? I don't have to transfer or anything like that? I won't even speak if you don't want me to, I promise. You won't even know I'm here…" He rubbed a hand through his hair, a slightly manic gleam in his eyes as he muttered underneath his breath, almost as if to himself.

"Won't even know I'm here…I'll be so quiet….you'll see, so quiet. Quiet, quiet."

He suddenly snapped to, as if out of a reverie created a long, long time ago, and grinned that hollow grin. "You hungry, Boss? You want a bagel? I know you like bagels and the guy is right outside." He suddenly jumped to his feet, a hiss escaping his lips as he jarred his backside into action. "I should have brought it with the coffee, I'm such a freaking disaster. You sit down and I'll be right back. Bacon and eggs, right? Yeah, that's right…that's right." He rubbed a hand across his eyes, muttering again under his breath. "That's right…that's right…" before the terrifying smile bled through his lips once more. "I'll be right back." He patted his pocket for his wallet, and with Gibbs still agape and speechless, sped from the bullpen, the lift doors swallowing him whole. Stepping out of the dawn shadows with a look of personal and professional horror on his face, Ducky was infinitely glad he had trusted his gut instinct as to what Tony would do.

Melting to Gibbs' side, he looked at the ashen pallor of his oldest friend with fury in his heart.

"Are you proud of yourself, Jethro?" He shook his head as Gibbs turned to look at him, his eyes shining with fear and burning regret. His voice when he spoke was a cracked whisper, effectively conveying the cloying terror that clung to his every fibre. "What have I done, Duck? What the hell have I done? What…what's the matter with him, what is he doing?" Chewing his lip to keep from launching into yet another tirade, Ducky felt an impossible sadness encase him. Tony was doing exactly as he feared he would do. He swallowed deeply and knew in that moment, that in order to help Tony, he had to help Gibbs…even if it was the very last thing on earth that he felt like doing. He forced himself to remember that fact as he took a deep breath. "He is trying to garner your forgiveness, Jethro." Gibbs gaped, horror spilling into his windpipe, transforming into scathing bile. " _My_ forgiveness? Why…what….I don't understand? He's looking at me like he doesn't even know me, acting like he doesn't know me…Duck, please, what's going on? Why is he acting like this? Why isn't he knocking me on my ass? Reporting me? _Anything?_ "

Ducky shook his head with an impossible frown burning into his brow.

"Because, Jethro…he _doesn't_ know you. I am afraid that Tony can no longer distinguish between you and his father. I do not tell you this to wound you, I can see that you know what you have done. And what you have done is the reason that Tony is looking at you like he is. He is terrified of you because you are, to him, a horrifying hybrid of yourself and DiNozzo Senior. Or worse, for all intents and purposes, you may even be one and the same." He shook his head again with an impossible sadness radiating from him.

"I am afraid you have broken him, Jethro, you have really and truly broken him. And I fear it is going to take a small miracle to put him back together again, because only those who truly mean the most to us can break us the way you have broken Anthony. Because you meant the most to him, he trusted you above anyone and anything else, and you let him down. You owe it to him now to do whatever it takes to bring him back to you, if it is possible. You know him better than anyone. You need to look to yourself and see what you need to do. No one else can do that for you." His eyes turned even more sombre behind the well worn spectacles as Gibbs gaped in his direction.

"And, Jethro? The clock is ticking. The clock is ticking so very fast."

…

A/N: Unrelated question: I recently stumbled across some very good fiction on fictionpress, which is basically a sister site of fanfiction, but for original fiction. I was just wondering if I were to post there, would any of you guys be interested in reading some of my original stuff?

Inks

….


	5. Chapter 5

Gibbs' heart hammered in his mouth as he watched Tony speed back into the bullpen. He raced with a pronounced wince that he was attempting bravely to hide. The office was still empty as his protégé landed in front of his desk with a steaming hot bagel in his hands, Ducky having left for Autopsy with parting words of wisdom. Placing the bagel on the desk with that same, frantic smile, Tony wiped his hands down his pants and caught his breath. "Can I get you anything else, Boss? Anything at all?" His stomach twisted in an unpleasant knot as he saw Gibbs' pale expression staring back at him. Was he mad? What had he done? He ran through the morning's events in quick succession. Sure, he should have brought the bagel with the coffee, but would Gibbs get angry about that? Maybe not. But of course he was so fed up with him right now, justifiably so, that even the little things must be incredibly irritating. The straw that broke the camel's back. That's what his father used to say about him. He was the straw that had broken he and his mother's relationship in two, since his very conception. He had found that hard truth out at fourteen, and even with everything it had been hard to swallow.

His own father resenting him before he was born had made sense, but it was still hard to swallow.

"Tony," Gibbs said in a weirdly gentle voice, breaking into his frantic reverie. "I need you to listen to me right now, ok?" Nodding immediately, the younger man practically fell over himself to do just that, straining his ears for fear of missing a single syllable. It simply wouldn't do to mishear or to force Gibbs to waste anymore of his time on him, repeating himself. Noticing the rapt attention springing throughout his second in command as if his life depended on it, Gibbs swallowed back the urge to vomit. Standing up slowly, he winced as panic danced in Tony's eyes once more and as his body braced as if waiting for the onslaught to begin. He opened his mouth but the words wouldn't come out. Even with Ducky's instructions and ministrations, he didn't know what to say. Or where to begin. As he stared at Tony, he saw the wreckage of their relationship staring back at him, and he simply did not know what to do.

"How do you feel about coming on a trip with me? Just us. Three or four days, tops."

The minute the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. He'd blurted them out as the panic had built to dangerous levels in his gut. He and Ducky had quickly agreed that he needed to get Tony away from the office, from the stress of any potential case. That he needed to spend some one-on-one time with him if there was any hope of even beginning to salvage their relationship. But he had planned to broach the issue delicately, not vomit the words up. If it was possible to feel any worse about himself, he would have done in that moment. But he was already so eaten up with self loathing and self flagellation, that he literally couldn't feel even a notch worse. He opened his mouth again, uncertainly, but Tony pipped him to the post.

"Alone? With you?"

The terror was evident in his voice, tinged with a heartbreaking and contrasting hopefulness. Feeling his mouth turn dry, Gibbs nodded. "Yeah, Tony, just me and you. We need to talk and I have a lot of explaining to do, not that you have any obligation to listen to me. I don't think being around here right now is best for you. You know I have that cabin in the woods, right? I was thinking maybe we could camp out there like I'm always talking about and just sort of…talk. If you wanted, I mean. You don't have to." Passion suddenly burned in his eyes. "I mean that, Tony, you don't have to. You do not have to do anything whatsoever that you don't want to do."

He leant over the desk slightly but quickly pulled back when the younger man shuffled sharply backwards, his eyes fixated on where his belt should be. Feeling almost weak from guilt, Gibbs sucked in a salty mouthful of air. "Tony. I did something terrible to you. Something unforgivable. And it makes me sick. I make me sick. So you do _not_ have to go anywhere with me, or be alone with me. If you want, we can go right up those stairs and tell Vance exactly what happened yesterday and let the dust settle where it may after that."

Tony's eyes snapped up from the puzzled examination of his waistline, his eyes growing round again.

"Vance?" he croaked, "You're going to report me to Vance? Boss…. _please,_ don't!" Feeling his mouth drop open in horror, Gibbs shook his head vigorously. "What? No. _No,_ Tony, no. I'm talking about reporting _me._ I'm all for that. I nearly went to his house last night to do it myself but I needed to see what you wanted to do first. Whatever _you_ want to do is what we're going to do. That's all I meant. I'm not reporting you to Vance. Jesus, Tony, there's nothing to report. I'm the one who assaulted you, not the other way around. And if you want my take on it, we should go up those stairs now and tell him everything." A catch appeared in his throat, but he pushed through it. "I abused a position of trust that was years in the making and in the process I lost any right to tell you what you should do. The decision is entirely yours, Tony, it's entirely yours. If you want to knock my teeth out, then you go right ahead. You want to report me to Vance, I absolutely support that. I'll write my own statement. It's…it's entirely up to you where we go from here."

A crushing silence descended and blanketed the room in an almost suffocating cocoon.

Tony's eyes were an impossible shape as he mouthed wordlessly at Gibbs, his heart hammering. "Boss…what are you _talking_ about? Why do you keep saying this stuff? You didn't abuse me, or a position of trust, or any of that. You punished me. You've done it a million and one times before; I don't understand why we have to talk about this one. I disobeyed you and lied to you; I deserved exactly what I got. If anything, I probably should have gotten more."

His eyes suddenly took on a glistening sort of hue and his voice constricted somewhat.

Like that time I got a C in Phys Ed? You remember? It was the one thing I was semi decent at and I nearly flunked because I couldn't apply myself. You were mortified because the neighbour's kid went to public school and managed an A. That weekend I came home from boarding school, you really let me have it and forbade the maid from giving me anything other than bread and water. I may have had welts on my ass and a rumble in my stomach, but I got that A the next time. That's all this is, isn't it? Trying to get another A? Just a grown up A. So, stop beating yourself up." He rubbed a damp hand through his tousled hair and gave the most heartbreaking attempt at a wink. "Besides, you always told me that chicks digged bruises so all I had to do if anyone saw was say I got them from falling off my dirt bike." He grinned. "And you were right. They digged the bruises _and_ the explanation."

A mouthful of vomit threatened to force its way through Gibbs' jaws.

Before he knew what he was doing, and how stupid it was, he strode out from behind his desk. His approach was watched with a hammering heart and fearful eyes. When he reached out to gently squeeze Tony's shoulder, Gibbs knew he had done something idiotic. Jerking back so fast he stumbled over his own feet, Tony raised both his hands defensively in front of his face and let out a strangled little mutter. "No…please, don't. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. Just, just sit down and have your breakfast. I'll go over there and you won't even know I'm here. Just please…don't." Dropping his hand like a steal beam at his side, Gibbs couldn't hold back the urge any longer. The communal recycling bin received the entire contents of his stomach with a slick splash. Wiping his mouth with the cuff of his shirt, he took three steps back from Tony with a terrible sorrow in his heart.

"I'm not gonna touch you, Son. I'm not gonna hurt you. I promise."

Confusion burst across Tony's face as he spied and smelt the vomit beginning to fester in the recycling bin. A new transition seemed to overcome him and concern surged to the fore. "Boss? Are you sick? Do you have a bug or something?" His eyes lingered over the untouched coffee and bagel and his heart plummeted. "They must be gone off," he muttered, almost as if to himself. "I'm such a freaking moron. I can't even get breakfast right." Sweeping forwards in the wake of an astonished and fearful Gibbs, he brushed the breakfast from the desk and into the bin. "I'll get you something more substantial later," he promised. Before seeming to second guess himself. "If that's ok, I mean? I can go get something now if you want, of course I can."

Gibbs stared wordlessly. He stared at the irreparable damage he had caused.

Just then, the elevator pinged and McGee and Ziva swept into the bullpen, laughing happily. Tony shot Gibbs a desperate look and murmured just so he could hear. "Boss. I know I don't have any right to ask this, but could you please not tell McGee or Ziva how badly I messed up? I don't want Tim making the same mistakes I've made. He's better than that. Please?" With that, he slapped on that class clown smile that broke Gibbs' heart on a normal day and slipped into his mask of the carefree jock, messing with McGee the minute he sat down. Watching the scene unfold with a leaden heart, Gibbs was distracted for a moment by the early arrival of Leon into the bullpen. Everyone looked up, as everyone always did, at the arrival of the Director into their midst. Gibbs caught Tony's look of frozen fear out of the corner of his eye and swallowed deeply. He had to swallow even deeper when Ducky suddenly stepped out from behind Vance with a shockingly sombre look upon his face. He avoided Gibbs' eye. Leon stood in the middle of the room with a quirked brow as he cleared his throat, focussing his gaze on a silently staring team-lead.

"Agent Gibbs. I need to see you in my office. Immediately."

He nodded and turned to climb the stairs, but threw another order over his shoulder as he went.

"You too, Agent DiNozzo. Just as immediately."

…

A/N: This is, as always, going to be a longer story than I had intended. My apologies!

…


	6. Chapter 6

Leon frowned slightly.

The wide eyed and slightly dazed expression on Tony's face as he ushered he and Gibbs into his office was unusual, but he shrugged it off as the latter having been over exuberant in delivering a recent headslap. Snapping the door closed and seating himself behind his desk as the two entrants stood stiffly in front of it, he raised a brow at the sombre expressions. "Relax gentleman, this isn't a firing squad. No one's in hot water." He grimaced. "For a change. Now, the reason I called you both in here is because something unexpected has come up and I, that is the Agency, needs a little assistance. I thought it would be a no brainer, but Dr Mallard came to me with some concerns about the assignment I wish to give you and so I will address those before I disclose any particulars." He inclined his head towards Gibbs who was biting back a full and shocking confession with considerable difficulty.

"You first. How is your stomach?"

Blinking rather gormlessly, Gibbs opened his mouth but was beaten to the track. "He's recently vomited," Tony blurted out. "But that could be my fault because I may have poisoned him with a sub standard egg based breakfast. That's my bad, Director. That's my bad…" It was Leon's turn to adopt a rather vacant expression as he stared wordlessly at an increasingly odd Tony. Again, he chalked it up to DiNozzo being… DiNozzo and turned back to Gibbs expectantly. "Well? How is it? Let me cut to the chase, are you travel worthy? Dr Mallard expressed concerns about a recent bug both of you seem to have fallen afoul to, not that I was notified, and he is dubious about you two's ability to go further afield." He jerked his head to include Tony in his questioning. "Well? Are you two a contagion issue or can you travel?"

Tony and Gibbs stared in utter confusion before the penny dropped for the elder of the two.

Ducky was giving them an out. He was giving Tony, an out. A tangible, medical reason to relieve him of the obligation to be alone with his boss. As grateful as Gibbs was in that moment for Ducky's omniscience, the guilt he was already harbouring seemed to intensify painfully. His oldest and most trusted friend had gone to great lengths to protect Tony. From him. He swallowed deeply. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that his protégé had deduced the good Doctor's intentions and was weighing them up carefully. Before Gibbs could open his mouth and say, no, they weren't travel ready, Tony had once again gotten there first. "Our stomachs are A-ok, Director," he said brightly, falsely, "Gibbs' stomach is settled and mine's never been better. What's the assignment?" Nodding in relief, Leon turned to the habitual thorn in his side. "Gibbs? That true? Your stomach in check?"

Breathing deeply, the uneasy feeling in his stomach blossoming, a haggard Jethro nodded.

"Great. Then you two are Mexico bound. We have Intel that the sleeper cell outfit we looked at last year, the BVB, are active again. This time down Mexico way. Reports say that they've been stirring there for around three months, plenty of time to establish a hard base in the area. We still have two dead Marines attached to that cell with no accountability to date. I am unhappy about that track record as you know and I'm therefore authorising you both to use all force necessary to bring those responsible to justice." His eyes lingered over Gibbs. "I mean court tried and approved, justice. Not your own personal brand of justice." He wasn't to know the double meaning his words carried or why both men in front of him looked down at the ground in individual pain, thinking similar thoughts. "Do I make myself clear?"

Gibbs and Tony nodded, neither looking at the other.

"Excellent. Now, you know how I feel about the man but I know there's no point in my telling you to keep away from him and his damned house. So, Mike Franks is expecting you. Your transport leaves in three hours. Pack enough for two weeks. No results by then, and I want you both home. Agent McGee will take point on any active case that comes in, he's more than ready and capable."

He inclined his head to the door.

"I expect to be kept in the loop. Your full briefs will be forwarded to you before you leave." He glanced down at an incoming email and nodded in dismissal. "Safe trip men. Bring those sons of bitches in and bring them in alive. That will be all." Gibbs led the way out, in somewhat of a daze himself, feeling Tony hot on his heels. Neither man spoke until the elevator doors gobbled them up and began its descent back to the Bull Pen. It took careful deliberation and much second guessing, but eventually Gibbs' hand snaked out and punched the emergency stop. He would have had to have been blind to miss the spasm of fear that crossed Tony's face as the metal cage came to an abrupt halt, his pale silence effectively broken.

"Tony. I don't think this is a good idea…you coming with me on this, alone, to Mexico."

Having fixated his gaze upon the grubby floor, the younger man snapped his head up with that same expression of wounded misery that sent Gibbs gut into a painful spin. "Boss? What do you mean?" A grimace passed over his face. "Are you still mad at me, is that it? Because I understand if you're still mad at me, I'd still be mad at me, but I can help. I really can. You won't even know I'm there; I won't open my mouth unless you speak to me. You don't have to speak to me of course, I get that. But please…let me come with you." Gibbs swallowed down a now near habitual mouthful of bile. The lost, crushed expression on the kid's face was about as much as he could take. Scrubbing a hand through his hair he saw Tony's wince and let it fall limply by his side.

"Tony. I just don't think it's a good idea that we work together, alone. Far from home."

Green eyes iced over with years of unbridled hurt.

"You're ashamed of me…you don't want me to embarrass you in front of Mike, I get it…."

Gibbs' eyes damn near popped out of their sockets as he stared at the drooped mop of sandy brown hair. "But I can be quiet," Tony continued in a pleading mutter. "I won't embarrass you or bug you. I swear. Like that time when we were in Rio for your annual trip. Six days I spent in that hotel room, all alone, and no one knew I was there. I hid when the maid came in to clean so she wouldn't cause a fuss. I was seven; and you said I could handle it. So I did, and I can now too. Mike won't even see me if you don't want him to. I promise."

Gibbs' mouth went dry.

"Tony…please. I'm not your father. Look at me, see? I'm not him. It's me, it's Gibbs."

The incredulous look that was sent towards him did nothing to moisten the Sahara between his lips.

"Boss, are you feeling ok?" Tony asked anxiously. "You're acting pretty weird. Is your stomach actually that bad? Cos if it is, I'm pretty sure I have some old meds lying around my apartment that you could have. They settle your gut. We could swing by my place before we leave?" His eyes roved over the stalled emergency stop button. "If we leave that is. Boss, the Director will have our heads if we don't make that transport. Three hours isn't a lot of time to prepare for a two week trip. We really should get going."

The sudden matter of fact and professional tone of his voice sent shivers down Gibbs' spine.

Closing his eyes briefly, he reached out and flicked the elevator switch into gear and sent the metal cage trundling along once more. "You get off on our floor Tony and brief McGee about what's happening. I just need to check in with Ducky about something and I'll be right up, ok?" The gentle and almost cajoling tone of his voice earned him another confused look from his second in command, but he nodded nonetheless. "Sure thing, Boss, will do." With that, the elevator pinged on the Bull Pen level and he strode from the lift with a small smile. Keeping up the front until the doors concealed him, Gibbs leant back against the metal wall and allowed a gut wrenching sigh to escape his lips. He knew today was going to be one of the worst days of his life, but he hadn't expected it to be such a rollercoaster of emotion. The way Tony interchanged from seeming to know who he was, before switching back to a much younger version of himself, who had no idea who he was, made him want to hurl.

Ducky was thankfully alone in his lab when he swept in, five seconds later.

"You tried to give Tony and I an out," he greeted bluntly, landing on the far side of Ducky's first autopsy table. "Thank you." Ducky looked up from a mass of files and the cold gleam in his eye was undeniable. "I didn't do it for you, Jethro, I did it for Anthony. You were merely an unfortunate beneficiary of an option I daresay wasn't taken?" Accepting the barb he wholeheartedly deserved, Gibbs nodded. "Tony wants to go. I tried to talk him out of it, but he…" The colour in his face drained. "He's having a hard time focussing, right now." Ducky frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

"He keeps…one second he knows who I am and what he's saying and the next…he doesn't."

"I take it you mean he flits in between speaking you to as yourself and speaking to you as his father?"

"It's like he doesn't even remember the stuff he's been saying, when he thinks I'm him…."

Ducky sighed, worry lines spreading like wildfire across his face. "It is more than likely, Jethro, that he does indeed have no idea or memory of what he has said when the lines between you and his father are blurred. When someone survives what Tony has survived, they do so because they have formed a coping mechanism. Tony's I daresay was to compartmentalise. The part of his mind that houses a childhood hood of painful memories has been carefully segregated, like one would quarantine a disease. The treatment for that disease has been finding a father figure in _you,_ Jethro and finding a place in the de facto family you and your team has created. Over time and under your tutelage, that compartmentalisation as grown even stronger. The door in Tony's mind, separating his painful past from his present day has grown stronger and stronger over the years. However, as with all disease, there can be a relapse, a setback where there is renewed trauma."

He regarded Gibbs coolly.

"Even more so when that renewed trauma comes from a trusted and almost revered source."

Gibbs paled even further but acknowledged his guilt, silently praying Ducky would continue.

"Let me summarise it for you, Jethro. When you _beat_ Anthony and slammed a real door shut behind you, you knocked down a psychological door. Now, all the memories that were contained like swirling beasts behind it are free to roam around in the rest of Anthony's brain and mingle with his present thoughts and emotions. It all becomes a bit confusing. Because that pain has been stored away for so long without being adequately addressed, it has festered; it has become nearly a living thing in its own right. And now it is free and running amuck in Anthony's mind. The reason he thinks he is speaking to his father one moment and you the other, is because he no longer has his door. His door was all that kept him safe and you took it from him. Now there is so much going on inside that boy's head that he can't keep up. So you're Anthony DiNozzo Sr one moment and Leroy Jethro Gibbs the next. He won't remember flicking between the two of you, because his demons are so soul consuming he doesn't have the energy for anything else."

He took a deep breath and brought his explanation to a close.

"The boy is traumatised, Jethro. His mind is playing tricks on him. He might see his father's face but hear your voice, or see your face and hear his father's voice. It is a common and terrible side effect of the trauma he has suffered. The brain is a very delicate piece of machinery and I am afraid that his is flooded, it is saturated and it cannot take any more. And until both you and your place in his life is solidified for him again, there is no hope for the lad to come back from the painful plane he is currently languishing in. None at all."

The urge to vomit was once again strong for Gibbs, but he resisted.

"How?" he croaked, "How do I do that…solidify who I am and my place?"

Ducky, in that one moment, truly understood the degree of Gibbs' remorse and pain. It was evident in his voice. After a moment of silent staring, he thawed a little. Gibbs might be a lot of things, but the love he had for his four, no matter how gruff or rough around the edges, was incontrovertible. Laying a hand on the man's shoulder, he cleared his throat. "You must remind him who you are. You must show him love, Jethro. You must show him that he is loved and that he is important." Swallowing, Gibbs raised a brow. "He knows that, Duck. He knows how I…he knows." The elder man shook his head. "He _knew_ it, but he no longer _knows_ it. That fateful event in that blasted Conference Room has set him back a considerable way. He's now every bit as unsure and vulnerable as the day he arrived here from Baltimore. I am not saying you must rebuild your relationship from scratch, no, but I am saying that you must get him to understand what has happened. You made a dreadful, near unforgivable and heinous mistake. But it was a _mistake_ nonetheless."

He smiled then, tightly, but a smile nonetheless.

"Anthony is considerably older than the norm to be learning that good fathers aren't perfect, Jethro, but one is never to learn to old something new. Teach the boy. Teach him that you are an imperfect being but you are not a being that is going to hurt or abandon him. Teach him that, and you and he will once again be as you were. It will take time and it will take patience, but I have every faith and belief that you will indeed get there. Together. He will forgive you, in time. He will be whole again."

Gibbs worried his bottom lip.

"Maybe. But I will never forgive myself. Not if I live to be a hundred and one damn years old."

Ducky tilted his head.

"Well, perhaps that is the penance you must serve, Jethro. But for now, go to him. Two weeks alone, albeit on the job, is something you both could benefit from. Spend as much time with him as you can. Talk to him. Listen to him. Do whatever it takes. You will know in your famous gut what he needs. For as shockingly as you have behaved, I truly feel no one knows that lad more than you. So put that information and intuitive gut to good use and mend what you have broken, Jethro. Whilst you still have the chance."

He dropped his head back down to his files, the dismissal clear.

"What if I can't, Duck? Mend it?"

Still not looking up, the Doctor leafed through a heady looking document.

"There is no 'can't' when it comes to family, Jethro. You must fix it and therefore you can and will."

Gibbs left the Autopsy suite much more informed than when he had entered, but even sicker with guilt. He had unleashed a shitstorm of horror upon his second in command. He had undone years of hard work and progress with the kid in one fell swoop. The pain he knew Tony must be in hit him like a freight train. It was a long, lonely ride back to his team's level and the travel arrangements that took place thereafter passed in a blur. He vaguely remembered reading through a thick brief that had appeared on his desk before grabbing his gear bag and following a nervously chattering Tony out to the car lot, into an Agency car and then half an hour later, into a nondescript plane. It was only when they were buckled into their seats that the nervous tinge to Tony's voice gave away to a ringing tone of sheer terror.

"Boss…you're very quiet. Have I done something wrong? I bet I've done something wrong…"

Gibbs shook his head violently as the plane began to vibrate beneath them.

"Hey, no. No, Tony. You've not done anything wrong. I'm just…thinking."

The younger man peered at him intently and the complete lack of light in his eyes made Gibbs sick.

"Thinking about?"

"You. And how I'm ever going to make things right."

Tony sank back in his seat with a sigh. "Boss, c'mon, you're surely not still going on about that spanking?" He shook his head. "Let it go." Gibbs mirrored the head motion and spoke quietly. "It wasn't a spanking, Tony, it was a beating and I can't let it go. I just can't." For the first time since the whole horror show had unfolded, a spark of anger seemed to ignite within Tony as the plane ascended slowly. "Damnit, Boss! Drop it, would you? Why do you have to keep bringing it up? Just forget about it, don't talk about it, don't think about it…and it will go away. Trust me. I know these things. It will go away, alright? I promise. Now can we just go and have a good time in Mexico, catch a bad guy, and forget about it all?"

The sudden anger all but evaporated a split second later and fear blossomed in the otherwise dead eyes.

"Boss…I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. I didn't mean to run my mouth. I shouldn't have been rude…it won't happen again, I swear." Seeing the beginning of a meltdown and reacting foolishly, Gibbs reached out to gently grasp Tony's shoulder. The movement triggered some sort of spasm in the younger man and he jerked away defensively, as far as his seat belt would allow. "Don't," he blurted out, "Please don't. I said I was sorry, I'll watch my mouth…just please." Snatching his hand back and cursing himself out violently, Gibbs leant back out of the kid's space. "Tony. Tony listen to me, I'm _not_ going to hurt you. No one is going to hurt you. I promise. I promise I won't let anyone hurt you."

The quiet voice seemed to bring the young man back down to Earth and he visibly deflated.

"Sorry," he mumbled weakly, "I guess I'm not really over the whole _not liking planes thing_. They still make me a little woozy." Knowing that to press the issue would only panic his protégé even further, Gibbs nodded acceptance of his pretence, feeling nauseas. Silence grew between them as the plane gathered pace. The next time Gibbs glanced to the side, Tony was breathing steadily with his eyes closed. More pretence. Again, he accepted it. He would have accepted anything that made the kid feel even a jot safer or more comfortable. After a half hour, Tony's sleep was real and the snores that emanated from him made it clear that he had not slept recently. Even with his warm frame against him, Gibbs had never felt so alone. When the plane began its eventual descent, Tony jerked awake and stared at him with wide eyes.

"What are you doing here? How the hell did you get on this plane?"

Gibbs blinked stupidly before realising he was looking at another transition and swallowed.

"Tony? It's me, remember? It's Gibbs. Boss."

A heartbreakingly false smile crossed over the handsome face as Tony stretched out his limbs. "Boss I've been looking at you for the last ten years. I'm pretty sure I know who you are. You don't need to keep telling me." Rolling his eyes, he unbuckled his belt as the plane skidded onto Mexican soil and glanced out the window. Gibbs' gape went unseen by him. Five minutes later they were deplaning and breathing in the hot air. Leading the way with a now appendicitis-like pain in his gut, Gibbs navigated the half hour trip to Mike's ramshackle house. He was waiting for them at the door, a broad smile on his face. "Probie," he greeted Gibbs they landed on his door step, "Probie Junior," he added and Tony grinned back at him. He instantly noted that the grin didn't meet the eyes and frowned in confusion.

DiNozzo was always happy. He'd never known him to be anything but.

"Mike, do you mind if we get settled in case wise before we eat? We got a lot to do."

Opening his front door wider, the eldest of the three nodded immediately.

"Sure thing. What's mine is yours. For two weeks only, then you both gotta get the hell out."

Rolling his eyes, Gibbs nodded and led the way to the spare room at the back of the house. It was already equipped with a cork board and two desks. Throwing down their bags, he turned to Tony and took a deep breath. The moment he had laid eyes on his former boss, he had been stricken with a sudden and gripping thought. It was all he could think about it and somehow, someway, he knew that it had to happen. In order to help Tony, he needed to help himself first. He was no good to him this way. He wasn't decisive, he couldn't trust his gut, there was a cloud hanging over him. What he was planning wouldn't remove the cloud, but it would go some way to clearing the fog. A price he was most certainly willing to pay if it meant getting anywhere with Tony.

A hundred times over.

"Tony…there's a store on the other side of town. It's about a thirty minute walk, ask anyone for directions. We're gonna need some supplies. Run down?"

Nodding immediately, with that same desperate urge to please, Tony all but bolted from the room. Taking a steadying breath, Gibbs squared his shoulders and strode out from the room a few minutes later. Mike was brewing a pot of coffee at the ancient stove and turned at the loud entrance. "Probie. What in the hell is the matter with that kid of yours? I tried to be friendly, as you _insist,_ and slug his shoulder and he nearly had a coronary episode. Damn near fell over himself to get away from me, muttering to himself and what not. You'd swear he was fresh out of some class of institution, that wild look in his eye. Is he sickening for something?"

Gibbs said nothing as he reached down to unbuckle the belt he'd hastily thrown on in the spare room.

He set it down on the kitchen counter with a dull thunk. Mike's eyes followed it, utter confusion dogging his face as he also took in the ashen hue, baggy eyes and trembling fingers of his long term protégé.

"I need your help, Boss."

….

A/N: A gentle reminder that I will bring Gibbs and Tony back together but I think it would be insulting to Tony to rush it!

Inks

….


	7. Chapter 7

"You did what?"

Mike's voice was quiet, but to Gibbs, it may as well have been a full-scale bellow. It was clear that Mike couldn't process what he was hearing, couldn't believe what he was being led to see. He stared at his long term protégé with confusion in his eyes, his gaze flickering from Gibbs' sunken face to the belt he'd placed on the table beside them. Swallowing and mustering up a level of courage he'd not required since his active Corps days, Gibbs squared his shoulders and braced himself.

"I whipped him, abused him, assaulted him. Whatever you want to call it, I did it."

Eyes still sharp despite the amount of liquor bottles they bore witness to widened in continued disbelief. "What is this utter nonsense you're spouting, Probie," Mike grunted. "You'd never lay an abusive hand on that kid. Never. I just don't believe it. You may have acted a little in temper and said something you didn't mean; I can see that. But to…do what you say you done? Naw. I don't buy that for a single second. You wouldn't do something like that. No matter your bravado, I can see how you are with that kid. You'd never hurt him. Not like that. Whatever it is you think you done, you didn't. You probably got your panties all up in a bunch about nothing. The kid wouldn't be out here with you if you'd done that to him. He'd have knocked you clean on your ass and rammed his badge down your throat to boot. So, now, let's stop this foolish conversation and have ourselves a drink. Sound about right?"

Gibbs shook his head with the entire weight of the world on his shoulders.

"You're not hearing me, Boss. I know what I did, I've seen the ramifications of it. What you said a minute ago, about Tony freaking out cos' you slugged his shoulder? That's because of me. He can't handle being touched, he can't handle…he's in a state. He's a mess. Boss, you need to hear me and you need to hear me quick cos' we only got about an hour or so before he gets back. I lost my temper with him. I completely snapped. I couldn't even see him properly; I could only see rage. I could almost taste it. The last time I was that angry was when you showed me that file on Hernandez. I completely lost my shit with him. I am telling you, in no uncertain terms that I grabbed him, I threw him down over the table and I laid into him like I've never in my life even thought of doing before. All of this without a word. And when I was done, I just walked out. The minute I was done, I was gone and slammed the door behind me. I held him down so tight over that table that he has a blackening bruise on his back. Even if he'd wanted to move, he wouldn't have been able to. I haven't used that kind of restraint since I was working special godamned ops. I used military force against one of my own people. On _Tony."_

He trailed off for a moment, his breathing ragged and his chest heaving as a darkness began to smoulder in Mike's eyes.

He was starting to believe.

"Are you telling me that because he disobeyed you and took down an armed perp by himself, nearly getting himself a fatal stab wound in the process that you disciplined him…or are you telling me that you abusively lashed out at a kid that trusted you because he made a mistake that you yourself have made in the past? The former or the latter, Probie? Right now. One-word answer."

Gibbs swallowed but other than that offered no hesitation.

"Latter."

A crushing silence descended in the ramshackle haunt as the two men eyed each other, both dealing with a cocktail of crushing emotion. Gibbs watched with a dry mouth as the shock that had lingered around Mike's mouth hardened into lines of a terrible anger. Mike watched with a pain so acute in his gut that it took all he had not to run for the nearest head. He had never been told and he would never ask, but there was something in Tony's past that haunted him and he knew it. And he also knew in his heart and soul that it was a troubling childhood and a less than stellar father. He deduced from the very careful way Gibbs had handed him in the past that the SiC had endured physical and emotional abuse that no child should have to endure. His brain worked double time to acutely assess the situation as it now stood. It didn't take a psychiatrist to know that what his Probie had done would have been more than enough to trigger demons in the usually happy-go-lucky kid.

He'd known there was something wrong with those eyes the moment he'd laid his own upon them.

"Have you set him off? About his past? Did you open something that should never have been opened?"

Gibbs' jaw tautened as he nodded. He knew that full disclosure was an unyielding prerequisite of the conversation at play but he felt sick in his stomach, reluctant to enunciate the words. Pushing aside the feelings he had no right to pay any attention to, he drew a deep breath. "I've completely destroyed him. He was going to have to deal with his…past, one day. But he wasn't ready and I forced him to go back to a place he's spent his whole life running from. He doesn't know what he's saying now half of the time. It's like he's ten-year-old Tony one minute and thirty-two-year-old Tony the next. He talks to me as if I'm…someone else one minute, and then doesn't seem to remember a word of it when he snaps back to. He's terrified of me, scared senseless to be near me but he's putting on that front of his that tries to show otherwise. But I can tell. He's always looking to see where my hands are and he's always terrified of saying something that he thinks is gonna set me off. I've…I've broken him."

Mike stared with a slackening jaw, wishing he could wake up from whatever twisted dream this was. He knew Gibbs was a hardass, because he was a hardhass and the Marine had learned his civic management style from him. But for all his bluster, glares, headslaps and guff…Gibbs was a soft touch. He cared deeply for his brood and would and had protected them at an emotional and physical cost to himself. Trying to reconcile this Gibbs that he knew inside and out with the one the man himself was recounting was making him feel naseuas. That discomfort however was rapidly being replaced by a raw, burning anger. He liked Tony. He liked him a lot. He was a solid kid, he'd go far. He'd sacrificed a lot for Gibbs, too. He'd done everything the man had ever asked of him and then some. He'd been unfalteringly loyal when the Probie had taken his unplanned hiatus with him by the beachside and he'd been even more so when he'd returned and stepped aside without a word of complaint.

His jaw ground together.

"Tell me this is a joke, Probie. Please tell me that this is some sort of sick joke."

Gibbs paled to a medically unseen level of white in a living person.

"You have no idea how many times I've asked myself that or wished I'd wake up from this. But, no."

Mike's hands twitched. He mumbled something incoherent under his breath as he seemed to age where he stood, scrubbing a weary hand over itching eyes. Nothing was said for the longest moment as Gibbs' heart simultaneously sunk to his boots, hammering violently all the way. He didn't know what he'd expected. For Mike to knock him out with a clean shot to his jaw, for him to throw him out on the street. He had no idea, he hadn't been able to see beyond the need to get his filthy secret that harboured like a mould spore within him, out of him. The silence however, the thick and unyielding silence wasn't, if he had been expecting, what he would have been braced for. Mike tended to be a swiftly reactive person, not a pensive one. But given his position, Gibbs figured he didn't have the right to be bothered by anything. He'd given all that up the minute he'd snapped with the one person with whom it would always be the most damaging.

"How could you?"

Icicles seemed to drop from Mike's lips as the words floated around the room. Gibbs' gut contracted at the disappointment and settling shock in his mentor's voice. He didn't have an answer to the very obvious question but he knew he would have to offer something. "I…I snapped. It was such a close call. He was a fraction away from that knife right into his heart and it would have been so _pointless._ He coerced that confession out of that perp, and yeah, it's admissible and yeah, it saved the case. But the fact that after so much time he still thinks his life is less important than a case just triggered something. I nearly saw him die for something that compared to that, doesn't even come close to mattering. I lost it. It's the worst mistake I've ever made with him and I feel sick every time I look at him, but I don't know…how…if I can ever make it right. I don't know if I can ever look at him and not see what I did to him. I just don't know."

Mike's nostrils flared.

"You need to get out of my sight. Go. Go for a walk. Just go. Before I make the same mistake you did."

Gibbs blanched.

"Boss?"

"I said go!" Mike suddenly roared, the lid on his anger straining like a boiling saucepan. "Out of my sight with you. I need to…I need time…just get out. And take your damned belt with you. What the hell do you think I am, judge jury and executioner? You having a laugh? Go. Get. And don't you dare come back into this godamned house until I come and find you."

The younger man's mouth fell open.

In the history of his relationship with Mike Franks, this had never, ever happened.

"Boss?"

"You heard me. Get out. For your own good."

Agape, Gibbs moved not an inch. He wiped a hand across his now sweat soaked brow and blinked rather gormlessly. Just as Mike was breathing in a lungful of air to really let rip, his quiet voice seeped into the room and the desperation in it had him stopping short.

"Please, Boss. I need your help. Tony, he's…I can't lose him. I just can't go through that again."

Mike felt the wind deplete rapidly from his sails. Images of all the times he came so close to snapping with his Probie the way he had done Tony swam in his mind's eye. There was many a time where he was a fraction of an inch away from leathering the maddening Gunny, before his faint self-restraint would bring him back from the edge. One time in particular, if it hadn't been for a very lost and confused mailboy barging in on them, he might well have lost his cool and done the unthinkable. He looked at his pale prodigy and saw the strain the whole debacle was taking on him. He also couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Gibbs say _please._ Sighing, he looked down at the floor and took a dizzyingly deep breath to steady himself.

"What do you think a strapping is gonna do, Probie? An eye for an eye is it?"

Gibbs shook his head immediately.

"No, Boss. Nothing like that. It's just…I can't think. I can't get my head on straight. The guilt, I haven't felt guilt like this in years. I know nothings gonna take that away but I need something to take the edge off. All my focus has to be on him. Everything I got, it has to be for him. The way I am now, I can't see through it. I feel sick in my gut with regret every time I lay eyes on him. I have to do something to grind down the edges of it. I will never forgive myself for what I've done, that's not what this is about. It's about him. Though it's probably a case of way too little, way too late."

Mike scratched his chin as he pondered this, his expression still dark as all hell.

"So, you want me to tan your ass, even though you're a hundred years past that, for _Tony?"_

"You have some other way of me being able to see past my own crap, I'm all ears, Boss."

Sighing, Mike realised the rather bizarre rational as being Gibbs' best chance at ever rectifying things with his SiC. He tested the waters of his own temper, straining to see could he be controlled and fair. As angry as he was and as much as he would have liked in that moment to hurl his protégé onto the streets for some alone time to process, he appreciated the urgency of the situation. Gnawing his bottom lip, it was Gibbs' one last look of crushed misery that decided things for him. Reaching out without another word he picked up the thick belt from the table and pointed to the wide kitchen table that stood beside them. "I give you this licking, Probie, it's gonna hurt. It ain't gonna be no token deal. Even if it weren't for Tony's benefit, I don't think you've ever done something that deserved a hiding more. So you don't decide when we're done, I do. You ain't the Boss here like you are with your four. You need to remember who's who around here if I do this. That clear?"

Gibbs didn't miss a beat.

"Yes Boss."

Mike relented a jot, the clear willingness to do whatever it took from the younger man thawing him.

"It'll be alright," he grunted. "Take a long time, a lotta work…but it'll be alright. He's a great kid."

"I know," Gibbs said softly, "Not that I ever tell him that. Or anything resembling a compliment." Sensing a spiral, Mike tightened his hold on the belt and steeled himself for something he hadn't done in a long time or envisaged ever doing again in his life. "One thing at a time. Rome wasn't built in a day. Let's get this over and done with first." He wrapped the buckle around his hand and sucked in some air. "You remember the drill, Probie. Get your backside over that table."

Again, the younger man missed not a beat. If he was scared, he didn't show it.

Which was a skill because he was. Scared.

That it wouldn't work.

Moving his hand up to rest on the small of Gibbs' back, Mike took a deep breath and raised the belt high, resolving to deliver a meaningful but swift instruction. After a single moment of hesitation, he began to bring the leather strap down through its first arc. But before the belt could make contact with its intended target, it suddenly veered dangerously off course to slap down on the wooden surface top of the table, causing its intended recipient to jerk in surprise. The rustling at the back door suddenly seemed to magnify in decibel intensity, morphing into a roaring pitch. Gibbs suddenly found himself hauled to his feet and spun around, the sudden movement having him blinking dizzily. Assuming Mike had changed his mind at the very last minute, he was about to resign himself to never being able to see past himself. But that was before he looked up to see the cause of his old Boss' distraction.

The belt was dangling loosely in Mike's hand and the eyes were fixated upon it in pools of terror.

"Forgot my wallet. Had to come back."

With that, uttered in a whisper, Tony turned and bolted from the house.

It was hours and hours before Gibbs and Franks had to admit it to themselves out loud.

He was gone.

….

TBC

…


	8. Chapter 8

"You know, this a real nice spot in the daytime. Pretty nippy during the night though."

Looking up with a jolt as the familiar voice pierced his solitude, Tony felt an aching stiffness mutate in his bones. He didn't know how long he had been sat hunched behind the huge rock that protected him from the gustier sea breezes, but it must have been quite some time. The dark sea reflected the sparse lights of the nearby town as the starry sky illuminated the fatigued lines under his eyes. Mike hoisted himself over the boulder with an ease that belied his age and hunkered down beside the AWOL visitor with an unusually gentle smile. Without a word, he fished out the rug and hot thermos he had stuffed in the bag he toted and handed them to a frozen Tony, who took both gratefully. Allowing the kid to drape the blanket over himself and practically inhale some of his trademark chicken soup, Mike maintained a thoughtful silence.

It was Tony himself who broke it.

"I'm sorry for pulling a disappearing act…I've got a bit of a…stomach bug, needed some air."

A part of Mike's heart, that he would never admit even existed, broke into a million pieces at the attempted cover up. He wasn't a loquacious man, he damned near hated the human need for verbal communication with a passion, but he did his very best to choose his words carefully. Scratching his stubbled chin, he breathed in the crisp night air and braced himself. "Tony, son. You need to know that I know what happened. There ain't no sense in me lying to you or beating around the bush. Probie's told me all about it. About what he did. I know, ok? I know all about it and it's nothing for _you_ to have to try and cover up. You don't have to make excuses or stories up about this. You're the one who's been…well, you're not the one who has to explain things right now." Already stiffened with the biting cold, Tony positively froze beside him as he put the thermos softly down.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Mike saw the determined tightness of the jaw creeping in and knew how desperately Tony wished that were true. Biting his lip, he thought quickly. A course of action suddenly slid into his throat and before he knew it, his voice was once again breaking into the night air. "When Probie was about fifteen years older than you are now, he was in his first week or so at NIS. A real smart ass without any concept of his new-found status as a greenhorn rookie. I thought I'd wouldn't be able to stomach him for a week, never mind a month. But as time went on he settled down and we started to rub along together as nice as I knew how to rub along with someone. But he still tested my patience. Every single damned day, he tested my very last nerve. I always managed to keep my temper at least somewhat in check. Until the day when I very nearly lost it, until I very nearly did to him what he's done to you."

Tony squared his shoulders as the starry sky illuminated the stony look that was setting into his eyes.

"Like I said, Mike, I don't know what you're talking about. Change the subject."

Psychologist though he wasn't, the eldest of the two knew that the kid needed to face reality if he were ever going to come back from the mess he languished in, through no fault of his own. "Tony. You need to hear me and you need to hear yourself. Hard as this is kid, you gotta face it or else you'll be running from it forever. Gibbs _beat_ you. He's admitted it himself. He abused you. He lost his temper, he snapped. He threw you over a table and whipped you with a belt before storming out and leaving you to your own damned devices. He left you alone in an apartment all night afterwards. He took the trust you put in him and threw it in your face. He made about the worst mistake he could have made and he knows it."

Whatever colour remained in Tony's face ran out like a spluttering drain hole.

"He knows it," Mike continued, softening his voice somewhat. "That's why you walked in on what you walked in on. He asked me to tan his behind so that he could take the edge off the guilt he's dealin' with. He knows a roasting ain't ever gonna take away that guilt, but he just wanted to be able to see past it for a bit so he could focus on you. On what you need. On getting you to a place where you know what's happened and figuring out where you both can go from here. Whether you two can go anywhere from this, is up to you. It ain't up to him. You need to hear me, son. I dragged that fool up through the ranks of NIS by the scruff of his neck. I know him inside and out. And I ain't ever seen him like this. Never. That and that alone tells me what he's done to you is the most despicable thing he could have done. The _most_ despicable thing. But that being all said and done, the most important thing you gotta remember is that this _was not your fault."_ He took a chance and betraying his usual disapproval of such things, reached out to squeeze the frozen cold shoulder.

"This isn't your fault, Tony. It's his. It's entirely his fault and nobody else's and he knows it."

The shoulder melted under his warm grasp for a moment before it was jerked suddenly away. "It is my fault," the young man muttered to his knees. "I pushed him to it. Alright? I'm always doing that. I disobeyed him. I went for that suspect when he told me not to, screamed at me not to. But I thought I knew better, didn't I? Arrogance." He smiled a twisted smile that set Mike's teeth on edge as a weirdly distant look overtook the handsome features. "I've always been arrogant. Always showing off, always needing to be the centre of attention. Guess it finally came back to bite me in the ass." He let out a short, hollow and humourless laugh.

"Literally."

If Gibbs had been in front of him then and there, Mike may well have throttled him.

"Tony," he tried again, not even surprised by the weakened quality of his voice, "No. No this is not your doin'. This is entirely on him. He lost his shit. He snapped. He lost sight of what he was doing and the obligations he had. Whether you spilled his coffee or accidentally set of an IED, he had _no_ right to do what he done. None at all. There is no apportioning of blame here, kid, this is on him. It's all on him and I tell ya, for a stubborn asshole of a man, he actually knows it. He knows that he's screwed up just as badly as he ever could. He don't blame you, he don't blame you one single bit. He blames himself and only himself."

His jaw tightened and his voice hardened.

"As he damned well should."

Tony blanched beside him, drawing his knees to his chest and breathing deeply. He didn't want to hear all this. He didn't want to know. All he wanted, all he desperately wanted, was to forget it all. But Gibbs wouldn't let him and _now,_ Mike wouldn't either. Angry frustration welled up inside him as his teeth threatened to chatter with the cold, the warmth of the chicken soup wearing off fast. "Will you just let it go?" he snapped, "I told the Boss this and I'll tell you the same thing. I screwed up. I disobeyed and all he did was punish me. Like I deserved, like I always deserve. That's it. He did what he had every right to do. He's warned me time and time again and I don't listen. That's my fault and no one else's. I didn't listen to him when I was five and I knew what to expect then so I don't know what all the fuss about is now. So just _let_ it _go."_

Gibbs had warned Mike that the kid was transitioning between he and his father.

But nothing could have prepared the older man for the broken quality that came with it.

He swallowed thickly.

"Tony…did you hear what you just said, son?"

He stiffened and nodded with a certain vehemence.

"Are you insinuating that I'm insane? Gibbs is an abuser and now I'm a nutter? What the hell, Mike?"

The retiree shook his head. "No, I ain't saying you're crazy and I ain't saying Probie is an abuser. I'm saying that you might be a little…. confused right now and that he _did_ abuse you. I can't sugar coat that for you kid. He physically and emotionally abused you. Don't matter what you did, you did _not_ deserve what happened to you. No one deserves that. Absolutely no one." He scrubbed his eyes with a tired hand and tried to find the words. "Tony. I know you don't want to face it and I know it's a lot easier to just pretend the whole deal never happened. But it did, son, it did. And you ignore it, you try and push it down…it'll drown you. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, it will. And my worry is that it'll happen at the wrong time. When you're in the field, when your life depends on Probie and his on you. We can't take that risk. You understand that, right? We can't bet on those odds cos' they're bookie's odds. And the bookie always wins."

The kid seemed to age where he sat, his head dropping onto his chest with fatigue.

"How did you find me?"

Surprised by the sudden question, but recognising it as a plea for time to think, Mike shrugged.

"You ain't the first troubled visitor I've had to track down on this beach."

Nodding, Tony paled as a sudden thought occurred to him. "Gibbs…is he mad? That I've been gone so long? Mike…tell me the truth, is he mad?!" Seeing the beginnings of a meltdown, the older man once again reached out uncharacteristically and squeezed the same cold shoulder. "Now you listen to me Anthony DiNozzo. That is _not_ your concern. You don't have to think about how he's feeling right now, all you need to think about is you and you're doin'. But as it is, no son, he ain't mad. He's worried as all hell and more guilt ridden than I ever seen a man, but he ain't mad. He don't got any cause to be mad. He threw mad out the window when he did what he did. And he's damned lucky I ain't throwing him out the window straight after it."

Beads of perspiration popped up at Tony's temples, shivering in the cool wind.

A sudden look of intense distress washed over his face as the air deflated from his torso. He wrapped the blanket tighter around himself as images he'd tried so hard to supress burned into his brain. How it could have been a mere two or three days ago since the whole shitstorm had unfolded, he had no idea. He was so tired, so drained from it all that it seemed to have been going on for forever. And the cruel irony remained that the only person who would make him feel better in these sorts of troubled times, was Gibbs himself. The sounds of the Conference Room door snapping shut echoed in his ears as the waves crashed on the shore, magnifying the horror. Mike's words swam around his consciousness. Tony dimly realised it was the first time he'd ever heard the man say a truly bad word about his own protégé. A sudden and terrible awareness washed over him as he sat encased in misery. Turning to Mike with widened eyes, he finally admitted the terrible truth. The man was right, there was no running from it. He had to face it head on, even if it killed him. His voice was a wavering whisper when the words pooled from his lips, but his speech was unequivocal.

"He whipped me, Mike. Just like my father used to. And then he left. He left me all alone."

He swallowed a burning secretion of bile and blinked with such an intense and wounded innocence that the elder man felt a sudden tightening in his own throat.

"Why did he do that, Mike? Why?"

….

TBC

….


	9. Chapter 9

Looking down at the steaming mug of coffee that Mike placed in front of him, Tony swallowed. Mike was flanking his left-hand side at the scrubbed wooden table, Gibbs his right. He couldn't bring himself to look at his Boss and so he focussed his fleeting gaze on his Boss', Boss. The message in Franks' eyes was clear and Tony heeded it, dropping his gaze to the mug in front of him, curling his frozen fingers around it like a drowning man to a life raft.

"Tony has very generously agreed to come back here."

Those were the first words that had been uttered since he and Mike had arrived back at the beachside hut, to find Gibbs positively beside himself with anxiety, his ruffled hair bearing the tell-tale signs of having been scrunched in agitation. The look of pure and unadulterated relief that had crossed his face when he saw Tony enter behind Mike, physically unhurt, was as blinding as the sun's strongest rays. But Tony had turned away from, looked away from. Looked to Mike for guidance, for help. Gibbs' throat had ached then and he too, looked away. Unable to force his gaze on the clearly wretched kid.

Too ashamed. Too desperate.

Desperately ashamed.

"He is willin' to listen to what your sorry ass got to say, Probie. But that's it. Ain't no promised bein' made."

The feeblest flicker of hope ignited in Gibbs as he looked up from his own mug of coffee and over at his protégé. Did that mean, then, that Tony was ready to admit what had been done to him. One furtive look at Mike answered that question in the positive. The former Marine felt his gut clench. He needed Tony to realise he had been abused. That _he_ had abused him. But that didn't make that realisation any easier to take, to work with. To know that Tony saw him for what he was, what he had done, made him sicker than any four bottles of Bourbon on a self-pitying weekend ever had. His eyes clenched tightly shut for a moment, trying inanely to find the words. He took a deep breath and looked over at the silently observing Mike.

"Boss? Could you give us a minute?"

The vehement shake of the head was instantaneous.

"I ain't leaving him alone with you. You crazy? You sickening? I'm staying right here."

Consideration suddenly struck him as he turned to the pale Tony, speaking in a much, much gentler tone.

"Unless you want me to go, son? That's no problem, if you do. I'll be just a shout away if you want me."

Red-hot and violent shame spurted through Gibbs' entire being. His _mentor,_ the one who had taught him ass from his elbow didn't feel comfortable in leaving him alone with his _own_ protégé. With Tony. His mouth ran drier than dry as he looked at the youngest man in the room, who was clearly battling the decision-making process. His voice, when he did speak, held not the faintest glimmer of his usual mischievous and happy-go-lucky bounce. It was flat and monotone. It was grey. The sound of it kicked another wound of regret into Gibbs' gut as he looked down in well-deserved misery.

"S'ok, Mike. We'll be fine."

Nodding, the eldest man rose immediately. Rounding the table, he laid a soft hand on Tony's shoulder and leaned into his ear, speaking only so that he could hear him. Whatever he said elicited a grateful nod from the kid and a half smile, taut with pain. Crossing the rest of the distance, Mike placed a hand on Gibbs' shoulder, too. But it was about as far from gentle as could possibly be. He leant down and spoke in his ear, too. But no similar smile of gratitude was offered. Instead, Gibbs grimaced, both from the vice like grip on his shoulder and the smouldering speech he was a-party too. Only when he looked down at the table and nodded like a kicked puppy, did Mike release his clamp-like hold and sweep from the room, closing the door gently behind him.

And then, there were two.

A stormy silence filled the rustic space.

Gibbs was finding it hard to breathe, distinctly hot around the collar.

Tony was in trance-like state of indifference, staring directly ahead, his fingers still coiled around the burning hot mug. Flickering his gaze between his protégé and the table, a plagued Jethro racked his brains furiously. What in the good hell was he going to say? What _was_ there to say? _Gee, I sure am sorry for doing the one thing I swore I never would and being no better than your waste-of-space sperm donor?_ Nope. Didn't sound right. _Hey, Tony, that was my bad there, about beating you? That? Yeah, about that, shit happens…sorry, won't happen again._ Hell no. His heart began to hammer as panic set in like a necrotising disease.

For the first time, he didn't know what to do.

With Tony, he always seemed to know what to do.

But that was gone, now.

He clenched his fists as frustration gripped him. All he wanted to do, _needed to do,_ was to make things right. And he couldn't. How could he? How could he possibly make this right? He bit his lip with such force that the skin splintered under his sharp teeth and the rusty taste of blood filled his mouth. Swallowing a mixture of nervous saliva and tinny blood, he steeled himself. He had to just come out and say _something._

"Tony? Can you hear me? I need to tell you that I'm sorry."

Nothing.

The kid didn't even look at him.

He was apparently fascinated by the peeling paint that chipped crudely from Mike's walls.

He cursed himself.

He was _sorry?_ That's all he had to offer? That he was _sorry?_ As if he had dented the kid's car, scared off his newest female interest or forgotten his birthday. His face flushed with shame as he braced himself to try again.

But he never got the chance.

Tony, he was suddenly on his feet.

"You're sorry?" he repeated quietly, looking his Boss full in the face for the first time since he'd entered the house. "You're sorry? That's what you've got to say to me?" His face suddenly contorted and Gibbs watched in gripped horror as the gaunt, terrified look slipped from his face to be replaced by a burning mask of rage. It seemed, finally, that Tony was angry. Murderously angry. Gibbs was no shrink, but the five stages of grief suddenly struck him as being very apt.

Apparently, Tony had graduated from denial.

And was now entering anger.

Phase two.

Standing, too, Gibbs held his hands up, physically and metaphorically. "I know it ain't worth the spit on the sidewalk, Tony, I know that. But it's all I've got. I've made the worst mistake I could possibly have made with you and-"

"A mistake?" Tony interjected, his voice a terrifying slab of crunching ice, "A _mistake?"_

He took a step closer to Gibbs, who resolved there and then not to defend himself if the kid were to take a swing.

"That's what you're calling it? A mistake?"

He laughed then, a cold cackle that sent the hairs on the back of Gibbs' neck sky high.

"Let me tell you something about mistakes, Gibbs, cos' I've made a lot of them. And my most recent one, and arguably one of my most moronic, was coming back here. Thinking I could listen to you, see where you were coming from and see where we could go from there. That was a _mistake._ My not knocking your teeth out after you were finished holding me down across that desk, was a _mistake._ My not reporting you to Vance, having your job and your liberty taken from you, was a _mistake._ My thinking that I could even _possibly_ continue working for you, was a _mistake."_

He paused, wiping a hand across his flushed face as his chest contracted with painful ire.

"Thinking we could go back to normal, was a _mistake."_

He shook his head as a sense of clarity filled him, fuelled him.

And then said the one thing Gibbs had been expecting and dreading in equal measure.

"We're done, you and I."

His green eyes frosted over with the finality of his decision.

 _"_ We're _done."_

….

TBC

…


	10. Chapter 10

_We're done you and I. We're done._

Gibbs felt the words slide down his windpipe with all the ease of barbed wire. He closed his eyes and tried to retain his composure. Tony's voice rang with raw hurt and simmering betrayal, covered poorly with righteous anger. His next words were therefore crucial. He could see his SiC was milliseconds away from bolting. Panic threatened to take over. He pushed it down. His heat beat uncomfortably as he turned to look at his pale protégé.

"For the sake of the years gone by, can I ask for two minutes of your time before you really decide?"

Tony's jaw clenched as he stared unseeingly at the table.

"Since when have you ever asked for anything? And what makes you think I've not really decided?"

Gibbs digested those barbs, chewed on them.

"I guess I'm more hopeful that you've not decided than anything else. And, sure, you're right. I generally don't ask for anything. I expect and I demand. But I'm not about to do either of those things right now. So, if I talk to you, it'll be because you're letting me talk to you. Not because I'm talking at you. You deserve an explanation. As best a one as I can give. But if you want me to keep my mouth shut, then I can't argue with you. I can't force you to do another thing you don't want to do. I don't have it in me."

Green eyes brimmed with scorn as a dismissive hand was waved.

"I can't get a transport out of this hellhole until first light. I can't stop you talking till then. But if you're expecting a heart-to-heart, you're going to be sorely disappointed."

Gibbs nodded slowly.

"I can work with that," he said quietly, before giving up any hope of finding a palatable way to bring up the stomping elephant in the room. There was no way of shining up one of the darkest things he'd ever done. "Tony. First of all, whether you can believe me or not, I'm sorry. What I did to you is one of the most despicable things I have ever done and probably one of the most despicable things I ever will do." He looked down at his hands and drew a deep breath. Tony pretended not to be listening, but Gibbs knew him well enough to know that he was rapt with attention.

"There's no excuse for it. I'm not going to make one. I lost my temper with you. I completely lost it. I was so angry I couldn't even see you properly, hear you properly. All I could see was the danger you'd been in and how close you'd come to your photograph on that memorial wall. I hadn't been that angry in years. In years and years. I snapped. I snapped and I did something to you that I swore I would never, ever do. I abused you. I abused you and then I left you. And for that, there can be no forgiveness. I'm not stupid enough to think otherwise. I don't forgive myself. I'll never forgive myself. But if there's one thing I need you to know is that what I did is not something I'll ever let myself forget. I can promise you that."

He drew another deep breath, the longevity of his own voice a rarity to him.

His right-hand-man continued to look steadily away, continued to listen silently.

"Tony, I know what I did would have been terrible in normal circumstances. But I know that it took you back to a place you've worked very hard to get away from. I know it brought back things you've worked equally hard to deal with, to forget. That's why you've been flitting between seeing me for who I am and seeing me for who he was. I did that. I'm responsible for that. And for that, I hate myself."

He sucked in another breath, but his next bout of speech was cut short.

"You should. You should hate yourself."

Tony turned to him, an odd iciness encased by flames shining in his eyes.

"I trusted you," he spat. "I trusted you and you did…that, to me. I know I messed up. I know I can be a pain in the ass. I know all that. But I did _not_ deserve what you did to me. If I had a team, and there was someone like me on that team, I would _never_ do to them what you've done to me. I would take more care in my responsibilities to my people. You've spent years smacking me upside the head for acting the frat boy, but even as that frat boy, I would have more regard for the kind of trust placed in me that I placed in you."

The icy fire flickered and then splintered out.

Tony slumped in his chair.

"Why did you have to do it?" he muttered, almost to himself, "Why?"

Gibbs flinched at the tone of utter defeat and cursed himself a hundred different ways.

"Because I'm a bastard, Tony. Always have been, always will be."

The younger man quirked a brow at that but said nothing, staring back down at the table with resolute concentration. The frankness of his boss' admission surprised him. In a way, he had expected a gruff "we'll say no more about it and get yourself together" as a response to the ordeal of the conference room. This full and frank confession of fault and remorse was surprising. His father had never apologised for beating him. If ever he mentioned it, it was to tell his son that he was lucky he had such a forgiving father. The mutation of his father's face and Gibbs' face melting into one mask burned into his brain. He closed his eyes, and it hovered like a gruesome slide-show on his eyelids.

He snapped them back open and groaned lowly.

He was speaking before he knew it, before he could help it.

"I can't look at you and not see him. I can't think of him and not see you."

His fingers wrapped around his mug, desperate for a warmth to replace the ice.

"My head's fucked."

Gibbs' stomach clenched painfully. The confusion in the kid's voice was like an unspoken vitriol. He hated himself just as much as he hated Tony's father in that moment. Held as much contempt for his own treatment of DiNozzo Jr and he did DiNozzo Sr. Dread filled him at the possible and indeed probable irrevocability of his actions. What if Tony could never look at him without seeing his father? What if he wouldn't stay around long enough to try otherwise? He swallowed hard. Peeled apart his dry lips.

"I'm so sorry, Tony."

The kid smiled a grim smile of pain.

"What good does that do me, Gibbs? What can I do with your apologies?"

The elder of the two nodded and looked down at the table, suffocating in his own guilt.

"Nothing. You can do nothing with my apologies. I know that."

"Then why are you giving them to me?"

A pregnant silence prevailed.

"Because I don't have anything else to give."

Tony turned to look at the older man then, the defeat in his voice something he'd never heard before. An insufferable son-of-a-bitch though he may be, Gibbs had always been a son-of-a-bitch with a plan. To hear him so empty and without omniscience was something new. Something discomforting. He spoke before he knew it, before he could stop it.

"That doesn't sound like something the all-knowing Gibbs would say."

The all-knowing Gibbs didn't look up as he spoke quietly.

"Beating you in a fit of rage doesn't like something I'd do either, but I did. _I did."_

Another pressing silence ensued. It seemed to creep into every corner of the room and spread like a smog, cloying those within it. Tony closed his eyes. The upside-down and inside-out nature of his life for the last few days had his mind keening, desperate for relief. As if to stymie the pain, his subconscious threw up a hazy myriad of images of happier times. A series of first-time moments swum around his brain. His first day at NCIS, his first steak over the fire at Gibbs' house, his first pat on the back. His first DC heartbreak, the refuge he'd found in a dusty basement. The Christmases he'd spent surrounded by a family he never thought of finding. The inside of an undeserved jail cell, Gibbs on the other side with a pizza box and an unspoken promise.

He blinked, conflicted.

"I trusted you," he repeated softly, "I never thought you could do something like that."

Gibbs nodded slowly.

"Me either."

Tony looked at him and it took a lot for the older man to meet and hold his eye.

"Why were you so angry? I've done stupid things before."

Gibbs answered without hesitation.

"You've never come that close to an unnecessary death before. Not that that's any excuse for what I did. There is no excuse for what I did. All I had to do was to send you to the conference room and take the time to calm myself down. I've done it more times than I can count. I always made sure I was calm before dealing with you, with any of you. But not that time. Not that time…and look at what it's done. All because I was too stupid and cruel to calm myself down."

Something in the man's short speech triggered a dormant truth in Tony's brain.

Buried deep in pain and betrayal, but buried too deep to be forgotten.

"You're many things, Gibbs. But a cruel man isn't one of them."

The elder man's eyes opened with surprise and his countering argument was rebuffed.

"You did a cruel thing, yes," Tony admitted quietly, "But that doesn't make you a cruel man."

Gibbs' throat constricted as he assessed the sincerity in the kid's voice. To his shame, a trickle of relief that he did not deserve coated him. The fact that his protégé did not think him some sort of cruel monster was like morphine to him in that moment. He allowed it to sink into his blood stream with the greed of a burning man, closing his eyes in undeserved relief.

"I don't deserve that distinction," he said thickly, "But thank you, Tony."

The kid didn't answer, other than with a jerk of his head, and silence reigned once more.

"What happens now?" he asked after an eternity, "Do I have to transfer out?"

Gibbs swallowed the branding iron in his throat and resolved to be selfless.

It was the very least he could do.

"If that's what you want, Tony, then yes. Or I could leave. Whatever is easiest for you. You have plenty of options, you're a talented Agent."

Green eyes snapped to his.

"You could leave? Don't be stupid. The team needs you."

Gibbs grimaced.

"You think I trust myself with them after what I did to you?"

In that moment, the enormity of the situation hit Tony. The guilt the elder man felt was like a transparent sphere. He saw the lines of tiredness and misery etched onto his face. He saw the slumped shoulders. He heard more clearly the words of apology, drenched in self-flagellation. He saw the self-doubt, the self-loathing, but he didn't see the self-pity. He clenched his teeth together and forced himself to see things objectively, like an outsider looking in. He forced himself to go through a checklist, a questionnaire of sorts.

Had Gibbs ever done anything like this to him before?

No.

Had Gibbs ever apologised to him this frankly for something before?

No.

Had Gibbs ever expressed a sense of enjoyment and satisfaction from what he had done?

No.

Had Gibbs ever tried to blame him for what he had done?

No.

His eyes burned as he asked himself the most difficult question on the list.

Was Gibbs, all in all, anything like his father?

No.

In that moment and with a degree of courage he didn't even know he possessed, Tony turned to his boss and arched a quizzical brow. Things would perhaps never be the same. Things would perhaps carry a taint that couldn't be washed off. But if there was one thing he had learned over the years, it was that the most important thing in life was family. In whatever form, in whatever way one could have it. And sometimes, that meant attempting a degree of forgiveness one might think to be beyond them.

"Gibbs?"

"Tony?"

A screaming silence stormed the room for a moment, but only a moment.

"You're not my father. You're not him and I'm not who I was back then. And I think we can get through this. Things might never, ever be the same and it could take ten months or ten years, but we can get through this."

Blue eyes flooded with shock.

"But-"

"Shut your damned mouth and get us some real drinks."

"Tony-"

"For once in your life Boss, just do as you're told."

….

A/N: I apologise, I fear I've been neglecting my NCIS fics recently so here we are! Just to clarify, this fic will probably go on for another little while because the path to redemption is going to be rocky for these two, but they'll get there!

…..


	11. Chapter 11

Gibbs handed Tony a beer with the look of a man waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under him. Accepting it quietly, the younger man took a deep drink before settling into an almost melancholy silence. Nursing his scotch, that he didn't really want, Gibbs swallowed hard as he tried to think of something to say, something that wasn't inane or that might break the very tenuous ceasefire that seemed to be unfolding. Tony, who perhaps knew him better than he knew himself, raised a brow.

"Don't think too hard. You'll hurt yourself."

Gibbs stared wide-eyed for a moment before a small grin tugged at his lips.

"That is always a possibility," he admitted dryly, "I better not overdo it."

Tony smirked, still ill at ease, but feeling a hell of a lot better than he had when they arrived a mere handful of hours ago. The silence settled like a fine layer of dust over bone china. This time, Gibbs didn't try and think of ways to fill it. The quietude wasn't companionable like it would have been a week ago, but it wasn't fraught with icy tension, either. After another long draught, Tony wiped his mouth and leaned back in his chair, staring thoughtfully into the distance.

"So, what now?"

Gibbs looked up over the rim of his glass.

"What do you mean, Tony?" he said gently, careful to watch his tone, terrified of scaring the kid off.

"You don't have to talk to me like I'm broken, or like I'm gonna bolt any second," Tony replied, not having the energy to beat around the bush. "Yeah, my heads not straight and things aren't the same between us, but if I say I'm going to do something, then I'm going to do it. I said I'd stay, so I'm staying. If we ever want to get back to within a country mile of where we were, we can't walk on eggshells around each other. I'm too tired for that shit, I don't have the energy for it. Not with you, not anymore. I just can't."

Gibbs nodded immediately, cursing himself, before breaking a cardinal rule.

"Sorry," he murmured, "I just don't know how to… _be,_ around you after…what I did."

Tony's face took on a serious hue and he locked eyes with a deliberate grip, green on blue.

"You beat me," he said slowly. "You need to say it when we talk about it, you need to own it. It can't be an elephant in the room, never labelled and skirted around. You lost your temper and you beat me. That can't be changed. The past is written in stone. It ain't gonna change. The past doesn't change for anyone, Boss, not even you. You don't know how to be around me and to be honest, I don't know how to be around you, but we're both just gonna have to try. Ok?"

Gibbs nodded quietly, realising for the first time the fine kind of man Tony had really become.

"So, first thing's first," the younger Agent continued, "I do _not_ want the team to know. Under any circumstances. Not for any reason. I know you tell Abby everything and I know you don't like to keep secrets from Tim and Ziva, but this is my business. This is my thing. I don't need anyone who doesn't need to know, to know. Can you do that?"

Once again, the silver head bobbed up and down in swift agreement.

"I can do that," Gibbs acceded quietly, "Besides, Abby would have my head."

Tony threw him a dark look.

"I'm not sure I'd try and stop her."

He closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his aching head before carrying on once more.

"Secondly, what you're thinking about doing, you're not going to do."

Gibbs raised a brow and opened his mouth to protest, but Tony bet him to it.

"My father," he said blandly, "The minute we land home after this case you're going to go and track him down, telling yourself you're really no better than him, and have it out with him about my crappy childhood. Because you think it'll make you feel better. It won't. Knocking him out for what he did to me, will never change what you did to me. Comparing what you did to me, to what he did to me, will never change what you did to me. You need to forget about him. I'm still trying to erase him and all his shit from my mind and memory and if you go dragging my past into my present, I can't continue to do that. You see?"

Blue eyes bulged as silence once again prevailed.

Gibbs sighed as he admitted defeat, the lust for DiNozzo Sr's blood on his hand going unabated.

"I see."

Tony nodded shortly, offering no further elaboration on point two.

"Thirdly, and this is maybe the most important point, you need to forgive yourself. Don't even think about giving me the look, you do. You need to forgive yourself. I'm trying to forgive you, I can't do that if you don't try as well. We all do stupid shit when we lose our temper, and it just so happens that the worst person for you to lose it like that with, was me. That's just the luck of the draw. I'm not saying it's ok, I'm not saying if it ever happened again that I wouldn't break every tooth in your head. I'm saying that if we want to do this, we both need to start letting it go. And, being the helpful sort, I have a suggestion on how to do just that."

He paused uncertainly, before deciding to reveal all.

"I actually learned this method in therapy," he said quietly, "I've been going. Maybe four or five sessions under my belt at this stage. But anyway, the quack said that our brains are programmed to remember a negative more so than a positive. That's why when things go wrong, we feel like they're always going wrong. But they're not. We just think they are. So we need reprogram our brains into focusing on the positives. The positives in this situation are…" he trailed off, looking down at the table and playing with his beer bottle.

"I've worked for and with you for years. I've pulled so many stunts I don't even remember half of them. And within every single one, there's been only one constant. You. You're the guy. You're the one I turn to when I need someone, no matter what the problem may be or however badly I've screwed up. You've had to dig me out of more holes than should ever have been dug, and never once did you mess up like you did in that conference room. One negative for countless positives. You need to remember that, I need to remember that, we both need to remember that."

He picked at the dampening beer label and spoke quietly.

"You know what I mean?"

Gibbs, who was finding it very difficult to keep himself together, nodded slowly and spoke thickly.

"I know what you mean, but-"

"No buts, Boss. There can't be. Not for this to work. Trust me."

He looked up with a sad smile that tore at the older man's heart.

"Forgiving yourself doesn't mean believing your past behaviour to be ok, or not a big a deal. I won't think that when you begin to let go of this, you have my word."

Gibbs shook his head slowly in wondrous silence.

"Have you always been able to read my mind?"

Tony managed a small smirk.

"It's a pretty brief read."

Instinctually, born out of years of an established rapport, Gibbs reached out to deliver a soft headslap for the tongue-in-cheek remark. His arm stalled mid swing and his face paled as he gazed at his own hand in horror, allowing it to fall lamely by his side. Tony watched the rise and fall with an impassive expression, before arching a brow.

"Try that again."

Gibbs paled and shook his head.

"Tony, I'm not trying to start anything. It was just-"

"Try that again."

There was something about the tone, the steely glint in his eye and the unwavering conviction in his words that had Gibbs staring. Before he knew what he was doing, as if he were almost a puppet, he raised his hand slowly and softly, very softly, delivered the intended headslap. He winced at the tiny _pat_ that lazily danced around the room on contact, withdrawing his arm sharply.

His SiC tilted his head to the side with a very small, but genuine smile playing about his lips.

"You didn't break me. See? I'm still here, in one piece, very much in the fullest of my health."

Gibbs paled even further.

"Tony, I can't-"

"If things are ever going to be as close to the way they were, small steps need to be taken. That was a small step."

"Tony, it's not-"

He was cut off. By a seriously familiar and seriously stinging slap to the back of his own. Jerking forwards with the force behind it and letting out an undignified yelp, Gibbs turned to the backdrop of Tony's small chuckle to glare at Mike, who smiled serenely down at him. The man had always managed to emerge into a room like a wisp of smoke and leave it like a bawling buffalo.

"You heard the boy, Probie. It was a small step."

He grinned as Gibbs' eyes narrowed and indicated his throbbing head.

"That might 'a been a bigger step."

Before Gibbs could even utter a smart remark, the retired Agent through his head towards the kitchen.

"Why don't you go and take a few more small steps and get me a beer. I'm drier than a nunnery."

Snarling, but with little to no bite, Gibbs rose and stalked haughtily off to the kitchen, rubbing his head, with Mike immediately slipping into his seat. He smiled a genuine smile at the relatively bemused Tony and raised a bushy brow.

"You two seem to be making some real nice progress huh?"

Tony returned the smile and spoke quietly as Gibbs re-entered the room, beer in hand.

"Small steps, Mike. We'll get there. But it's gonna take a hell of a lot of small steps."

….

TBC

…..


	12. Chapter 12

A month can be both the shortest and longest passage of time in life. For Gibbs and Tony, the four weeks after Mike's kitchen talk represented both the briefest and most stagnated period of their entire association. Back in D.C., things were far from normal. When Tony had warned that the reparation of their relationship would take a million small steps, he hadn't realised he may have been underestimating the challenge they both faced.

They were courteous and professional.

But they weren't familial and friendly.

There were effective and diligent.

But they weren't case-busting and brilliant.

Ziva, Tim and Abby had held many hushed conferences on the matter. Neither of the trio could quite put their finger on it, but something was different. Something was manifestly different and it was affecting the team dynamic. Tony was quieter these days. Much quieter. He didn't ramble on about movie quotes, didn't offer witticisms at inappropriate junctures and he didn't even seem to turn his head after the more appealing female witnesses came into play. Gibbs, for his part, was weirdly patient. Oddly permissive and strangely complementary.

It was as if the two had undergone a personality transplant.

With the other.

As Abby worked diligently in the lab, Ziva and Tim continued to despair at the subtle differences in their AiC and SiC as they worked a particularly gruesome murder scene. Tony was astute, personable and warm as he interviewed witnesses, but he wasn't _Tony._ When he engaged a stunningly beautiful and blonde twenty-something, he treated her in the exact same manner as he had the balding man before her. McGee and Ziva exchanged loaded looks but both had the good sense not to bother verbalising their queries.

They had tried that before.

Tony had pleasantly told them nothing was the matter, but thanks for asking. Gibbs had practically gone thermonuclear and growled and grunted his way through a scathing tirade about the virtues of minding one's own business. Warned never to mention the nonsensical nonsense they were spouting again, he had waved them off with frost in his soul. If they were picking up on it, he wasn't imagining things. Tony really _was_ different. And he was different around him.

The scene was wrapped up in impressive double time.

Back in the van, Tony rode up front with Gibbs as he generally did and Ziva and Tim took the back. They communicated with expressive eyes as the pleasant, professional conversation between the team-lead and SFA trundled on. There was nothing wrong with discussing the merits of a case on the way back from a scene, true, but that wasn't the Tony way. Usually, he'd try to relieve some of the depravity and misery from their minds by bringing his humorous mask to the fore. He usually cracked jokes, inappropriate jokes until the fresh horror of the scene they'd just worked was just an iota less fresh.

But not today.

And not since he and Gibbs had come back from Mexico.

The trio had briefly considered ringing Mike for a briefing. McGee had put paid to the notion after the image of Gibbs' face upon finding out filled his mind. The older man was terrifyingly insistent that nothing was wrong and that they weren't to waste their time gossiping about either he or Tony. If he found out, which he would, that they had rang his old boss for the run-down, he would skin them alive.

And so, they continued in a state of ignorance.

What else could they do?

Tony said everything was fine, Gibbs said everything was fine, the evidence said everything wasn't fine. It was a classic case of circumstantial at best and cases that were circumstantial at best never ended well when pressed. So Ziva and McGee pursed their lips in displeasure in the back of the van and let AiC and SiC continue in their bubble. If experience told them anything it was that all bubbles eventually burst.

It was only a matter of time.

Back in the squad-room, they happened upon the Director in their communal area with a ferocious look upon his face. Gibbs wondered briefly if someone had forgotten to follow some sort of infernal procedure again and threw a glare at Ziva and McGee who blinked innocently. Both noticed that once again, Tony was exempted from the heavy-handed Gibbs treatment. In normal circumstances, that would have annoyed them, made them jealous. But seeing that Tony also noticed he was exempted and catching a fleeting look irritated exasperation crossing his face in response, they were merely made more curious than ever.

"Gibbs."

He inclined his head with just the right amount of habitual sarcasm.

"Director."

"There is a suspect in interrogation one I would like you to interview. I appreciate that he is not relevant to your current case, but this investigation concerns a friend of mine and I want the best on this son-of-a-bitch. Bring DiNozzo with you. It's a two-man job. I want answers from this walking piece of filth in no less than the hour, Gibbs, this is a time-sensitive matter."

Thrusting a thick manila file at the surprised Jethro, Vance swept from the room. Deciding that he would just catch himself up on whatever the hell was eating Leon so bad in interrogation, Gibbs beckoned to Tony who stood from his desk and followed him without a word or wise-ass remark about being the chosen one or the best of the best. The two walked in a silence that couldn't be described as either tense or companionable. It was in the middle. It was in limbo.

The same as they were.

Pushing open the door to interrogation one, Gibbs took an immediate and intense dislike to the creature that was seated within. Dark, greasy hair fell onto a lank and gaunt face. Furtive and beady eyes swivelled to his and the leather jacket that was two sizes too big crinkled with the cheapness of second-rate material. Sighing, Gibbs took his usual seat as Tony dropped down beside him and flipped open the manila file.

He immediately wished he hadn't.

Before he could even think of something to say, Gerald the perp, decided he had something more important to share. He puffed his cowardly chest out like a deflating balloon and eyed the two Agents with faded eyes and a weak chin.

"Listen, this ain't no federal matter. So I taught the kid a lesson. So what?"

Tony's stomach immediately took an unpleasant ride to terror town. Gibbs stiffened beside him and tried to swoop in and regain control of the interview. But Gerald was the talkative type. All cowards were talkative when they tried to rationalise their despicable actions.

"I get that he's a Navy brat and that's technically you fella's speciality. But that little bastard had been calling out for a licking since the day I met his useless momma. She ain't never had the strength to do what needs to be done. A boy needs to know who the man of the house is. A boy needs to know his place. And that boy needed teaching. So I whipped his ass, so what? I didn't starve the little shit. I didn't punch him in the face. I did what any father would do. He's six, he's not a baby, he could handle it. A belt is exactly what they need at that age and by God, a belt is what he got. And I'll tell you something else, when I get out of this place, he's gonna know what a _real_ whipping is for causing me all this trouble."

The air forgot to circulate in Tony's body. His neurons forgot to fire. The room was closing in. His eyes fluttered shut. The hybrid was back. The creature with his father's body and Gibbs' head, Gibbs' body and his father's head. It loomed large in his brain. Stomped on his grey matter with impunity. The conference room swam in his mind's eye as his control began to slip away from him. The dining room table back at the mansion cascaded with the oak table of the NCIS meeting room and nausea began to trundle through him. His six-year-old terror mashed together with the terror of this unknown six-year-old. It was an explosive combination.

He never knew he could launch himself across a table so fast.

Gerald crumpled under his attack with a pitiful shriek for assistance. Blood spurted from the creature's nose as Tony's trained fists landed true and bitingly. Gibbs was for the first time in his life, slower than those around him. He blinked in shock as the torso of his SiC had sailed past him and crashed into the disgusting perp. His brain froze over as shockingly red blood began to coat the SFA's fists and it was only the unmistakable sound of Gerald's nose being broken that spurred him into action.

He had Tony up and in an unbreakable hold in a split-second.

His protégé struggled fiercely against him as he restrained him to the soundtrack of Gerald's pathetic weeping. Panting somewhat, Gibbs managed to hold Tony until the fit of rage that crazed him began to subside. But eventually he wrenched himself free and made to storm from the room, but not before the words he just couldn't help pouring from his lips bled into Gibbs' brain.

"Makes sense you'd stick up for and protect someone like him, huh?"

…

TBC

….


	13. Chapter 13

The air shrivelled in his lungs.

Glancing down at the moaning, blood-ridden figure at his feet, Gibbs' ability to keep it together was tested to the bitter extreme. Bending down in slow motion, he dragged Gerald to his feet and threw him back into his chair. Shrugging out of his jacket, he threw it at the whimpering coward with curt instructions to stem the bleeding. Getting as close to the creature as he could stomach, he spoke in a low, threatening voice. Glaring until he got the answer and assurance he wanted, he sealed the deal with the devil. Without another word or backwards glance, he stormed from the interrogation room and sprinted through the corridors and up the stairs to the Director's office.

Leon looked up in shock when his office door rebounded off the wall.

"Gibbs," he barked, "What the devil do you think you're-"

"Damnit, Leon, why didn't you clue me in as to what I was trying to extract from that son-of-a-bitch in interrogation? You completely forgotten how to be an Agent, is that it? You send me into a room, which by the way is _still_ sporting a broken CCTV unit, with that dirtbag? Did you even stop to _think_ about how that would go? You know what, you can't even look at me like that right now. You should've known better than to pair me with him in a private room. Period."

Leon stood slowly, his palms splaying on the desk as he leaned over it.

"What the hell have you done?"

His voice was deathly quiet and only the stoicism he'd learned over the years kept the flinch off Gibbs' face. He stood firm and gave a shrug of nonchalance that took every ounce of his acting ability. He was aching inside. Dying. Tony's words had wounded him more than any injury in the line of duty. It scalded him internally, festering lesions cutting into his soft tissue the longer he remained sober.

"I beat five shades of shit outta him, Leon, whaddy'a think I've done?"

The Director's dark eyes bled with a slow burning rage.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You can beg all day, ain't gonna change my answer. You throw me headfirst into a room with a child beating parasite, and my response is always gonna be the same. Without the slightest hint of change. But not to worry, the Agency's ass is covered. Gerald isn't gonna be talking to anyone about his time here. We have an accord."

Director Vance instantly became apoplectic.

"You have an _accord?"_ he exploded, "What the _hell_ does that mean?"

Wincing internally and shrugging externally, Gibbs didn't miss a beat.

"It means that he's gonna tell anyone who asks that he's always had two left feet and fell flat on his face and I'm not gonna stop by the bar he drinks at and finish what I started. A quid pro quo, if you like."

Leon's mouth swung open like a pendulum.

Even for Gibbs, and all his years of rebellion, this was something else. He pinched the bridge of his nose and picked up his phone. Speaking urgently, he waited with a biting impatience for the Agent on the other end to sprint to interrogation. As Gerald's condition was relayed to him in a stunned voice, his face darkened. When Gerald's mumbling explanation of his own fall from grace was repeated to him, his features became downright electric. Putting the receiver down softly, he was completely disgusted.

His soft voice was an odd contrast to his mask of raw rage.

"Your badge and your gun, Agent Gibbs. On my desk. Right now."

Knowing it was coming but still having to bite back the emotive response, the elder of the two gave a short nod. Mourning engulfed him as he swiftly unclipped his badge and unholstered his gun. Placing both quietly on the shiny surface-top, he held his breath and waited for the axe to fall. It was to be a swift and unyielding strike.

"Agent Gibbs you are suspended from duty, without pay, until such time as this matter can be fully investigated and your fitness for duty evaluated. You will leave the building immediately. Agent DiNozzo will lead in your stead. You will be contacted in due course. You should take this time to contemplate whether or not there truly is a place for someone like you in this era of law enforcement."

Without another glance, Leon sat down behind his desk.

"Get out of my sight, Gibbs."

Nodding without a word of complaint, the sacrificial lamb turned and strode from the room sans credentials and weapon. He felt bereft, naked. And the churning sense of agony at Tony's venomous words was kicking up a notch every three to five seconds. Closing the office door quietly, he allowed himself the relief of letting out the breath he had been holding. His chest deflated like a pierced hot air balloon. Now that he had the most time-pressured matter covered, his attentions were moving back onto the most important matter.

Tony.

He knew Leon would be watching on his maze of CCTV footage to see that he left the building immediately. He had no choice but to do so. He would just have to call McGee for assistance from the safety of his car. Barrelling from the building and praying he didn't run into anyone, he reached his vehicle in record time. He cursed himself all the way. He had allowed, he had truly allowed, himself the hope that things between he and his SiC were in repair mode.

Moron.

McGee answered on the second ring.

"Boss? Where'd you go?"

"Tim, I need you to track Tony's cell and send me his location. Tell no one I've been in contact with you. Tell no one you've run the trace. Cover your tracks and don't ask questions. I will tell you everything I can, when I can, right now I need to find Tony and nothing else matters. You got that?"

To his eternal credit, McGee did indeed, get it.

The location seeped into Gibbs' cell a minute later.

He grimaced when he saw it.

The same freaking bar as always. He should've known. It was a mere five-minute drive away, or a ten-minute walk. As he pulled into the bar's lot, he didn't see Tony's car and breathed a small sigh of relief. The familiar smell of state tobacco and draught beer hit him as he pushed the squeaking door open. He saw his SiC the minute his eyes adjusted to the haze of blue smoke.

He hadn't even had the chance to get his first drink.

Slipping onto the stool next to him, Gibbs had to hang onto the bar for balance when green eyes suddenly darted to his and filled with venom. Quietly ordering two coffees and ignoring the incredulous look of the bartender, he turned back to the now stiff Tony and tried to find the words.

"Tony, about-"

"Save it."

Rubbing his temples as the beginning of a migraine struck up, Gibbs shook his head.

"You don't have to answer me. But listen to me. The reason I pulled you off that bastard has _nothing_ to do with him and _everything_ to do with you. Damnit, Tony, you are a federal Agent. You were in the middle of a governmental interrogation room with a suspect in NCIS custody. There is, whether we like it or not, a standard of professionalism and a duty of care owed. In all circumstances. What you did is enough to warrant a suspension leading to possible dismissal. I was just trying to save you from that. Nothing else and nothing more. It was all about you back there, not about that creep. You have my word."

The venom he had seen burst into Tony's eyes deepened menacingly.

"So now you're threatening to suspend and fire me? _Really?"_

Resisting the urge to order a bottle of bourbon to go, Gibbs shook his head.

"No, Tony, I'm not threatening anything of the kind. And I'm only telling you this now because you need to be on the same page when you get back to the yard, but I'm the one who's suspended right now. There was no CCTV in that interrogation room. I knew it. It's been on-and-off the blink for a while now and I noticed no red-light half way through that interrogation. After you left, Gerald and I came to a consensus. As far as NCIS is concerned, _I_ am the one who attacked him. And that's the story you need to stick to. Right now, you're the AiC of the team and that means you cannot be sitting in this bar right now."

Tony nearly fell backwards off the stool as he paled to an ashen white.

" _What?"_

"You heard me," Gibbs responded calmly, knowing that the kid needed calm more than anything else. "Now, there is no time for histrionics and complaints. The team needs you to lead them. That's not a responsibility to be taken lightly. You need to get back there and make it like you were never gone. Can you do that?"

Ocular venom was replaced with iris laden shock.

"I can't go back and-"

"Tony," Gibbs interrupted firmly, "The teams need you. There is no _can't_ when the team needs you. It's as simple as that. What's done is done and it can't be undone. It's all about damage control now. Leon will huff and puff for a while but he'll sign off on ending my suspension sooner or later. You are going to need to keep things running smoothly until then. With budget cuts and policy changes, you know scrutiny on specific teams is a dangerous thing. I need you to do this. Do you understand?"

Tony's eyes were in danger of bulging right out of his head.

But the enormity of his loss of temper was beginning to hit home and he nodded slowly.

"I understand."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Gibbs nodded and pushed the recently delivered coffee to him.

"Good. Then drink that and get back to work."

Staring down into the dark liquid, Tony's innards began to churn. His complete and utter loss of control frightened him. He was many things, but a liability was something he prided himself on _not_ being. But the minute he had launched himself at Gerald, that's what he'd become. And now Gibbs was paying the price for his mistake. And he was willing to pay that price even after the cutting words he had thrown at him.

Boling regret suddenly consumed him.

"Boss, I-"

"It's alright, Tony," Gibbs interrupted quietly, "It's alright."

The younger man shook his head urgently.

"No, it's _not_ alright," he countered with such urgency that the elder man didn't interrupt again. "I shouldn't have said what I said to you. I just _lost_ it when that animal started saying all that shit. I didn't even think about the implications for the job or the Agency. And now you're suspended because of me and I can't change that, because then the Director would know you were lying. You should have let me take the blame. This is my mess. Cleaning up your own mess is a rule. Why didn't you give me the opportunity to clean up mine?"

Gibbs shrugged ever so slightly and took a long draught of coffee.

"I guess because you wouldn't have made that mess if I hadn't messed with your head, Tony. There's no point beating around the bush. You lost your cool with that creature because you'd recently experienced, from me, the very thing he was bragging about. Anyone would've lost it. It's understandable. Taking the can for it is the least I can do."

Tony choked on the air lingering in his windpipe.

"But, Boss-"

"No buts," Gibbs interjected firmly, "What's done is done."

Staring with a mounting sense of misery at the counter, Tony's voice dripped with regret.

"Are we ever going to get past this?"

Knowing exactly what was being asked, Gibbs spoke softly.

"There was always gonna be bumps in the road, Tony. This is the first bump. We get through this and get back on the road, and maybe, the next bump won't be so rocky."

Nodding slowly, the younger man steeled himself.

"I didn't mean what I said. I'm sorry for it. I'm really sorry."

Far from being irritated by the kid's flouting of the apology rule, Gibbs felt a brick wall of relief crash over his head. In a rare and sober bout of affection, he took a chance and reached out to ruffle the sandy brown mop of hair. His balloon of relief grew when the SFA didn't break his arm off.

"Thanks, Tony."

….

TBC

…


	14. Chapter 14

"Suspended? What do you mean, _suspended?"_

Tony swallowed and prepared himself to trot out the company line, to lie through his teeth to cover his own ass. Abby's eyes were wide and saucer-like, the wind in her sails pooling around her ankles as she sagged, broken-hearted. Tim would be worse, in a quieter sort of way and Ziva would suspect there was something behind the smoke, and dig quietly under the surface. She wouldn't find the truth, and the relief he felt at that fact sickened and repulsed him in equal measure.

"Gibbs lost his cool with a child abusing suspect today. Knocked him around a bit. Vance isn't happy, and he's suspended him until further notice. I know that isn't what you want to hear, but it's the reality of the situation. I'm AiC until he's reinstated and we both know what Gibbs would want us to be doing right now, working the case, and not worrying about him. So, we should do that… I'll ask you again, Abbs, what do you have for me?"

Blue eyes pulsated with icy discontent.

"But, Tony, he-"

"Enough," he interrupted, calmly but firmly, "I've explained to you all that I know and right now, we have a case. Our personal opinions and feelings on in-house matters take second place to doing our jobs. Ok? So, please, for the third and final time… what do you have for me?"

She eyed him, long and hard, before huffing in angry defeat. In a cool staccato, she informed him of everything she had deduced thus far and sent him on his way with a shoulder colder than cold. He departed with a head both heavy and wearied. Guilt tickled his innards with a frosty hand. Gibbs had thrown himself in line for the slaughter to protect him from the formal repercussions he knew logically were his and his alone. How could he have _said_ those things to him? How could he have likened him with that scumbag perp?

His cheeks flushed with shame.

The bullpen was mercifully empty, he had a few more moments to compose himself before McGee and Ziva returned from… wherever the hell they were. His fingers drummed on the cold wood of his desk as his frown lines deepened in contemplation. He thought things were finally getting back on track between him and Gibbs. He honestly believed they were finding their rhythm, healing the wounds as they went along. But the very first time they were confronted with a situation that surged into being like a stomping elephant in the room, they crumbled.

 _He crumbled._

Guilt lanced through him. Gibbs had been trying hard, harder than hard. He had been cutting him slack, letting him away with tantamount to murder compared to the standards he'd previously upheld. Tony had needed that breathing space, needed that loosening of the rope, needed the freedom to heal in his own time, on his own terms. And it had been working, it really had, inch by inch it had softened the chasm between them.

Until now.

Until today.

 _Makes sense that you'd stick up for, and protect someone like him, huh?_

That's what he'd said to him, spat at him, and in the immediate aftermath of that fact… Gibbs had chosen to save him at the expense of himself. Why? _Why?_ Why would anyone do something like that after being so royally disrespected, so savagely insulted? A small groan threatened to emit from his lips as he tasted his words, truly felt their weight. He had lost all control with Gerald, everything was white hot inside him, everything was black around him. He couldn't stop himself, even if he'd wanted to, he wouldn't have been able to pull back the fists that flew forwards.

Gibbs knew that.

He stopped it, he stepped in and stopped it, and then took the rap.

So where did that leave them now? Where did they go _now?_

A rustling drew his attention away from his contemplations, his face paling as he saw Tim and Ziva striding back into the squad room. Deciding that biting the bullet was the best course of action, he stood and cleared his throat. Their questioning looks didn't last long as he launched into an explanation of events from the time he and Gibbs were called into interrogation to the present moment. Like he expected, Tim fell silent, a thinker in action. Ziva, on the other hand, was busy smelling a rat. Her eyes flashed with the fledgling detection of subterfuge and Tony saw the resolve forming in her mind to seek out an answer for herself.

He sighed.

If only she knew, she'd just kill him there and then, and all his problems would be moot.

But that wasn't an option, no, that wasn't an option at all.

He had a job to do.

The rest of the day passed in a tense, terse and tiring haze. Frustrating leads were followed and burned, uncooperative witnesses were interviewed and invited to leave. By the time six PM came, Tony had never been more relieved to escape from the confines of NCIS. But that relief came with a cost, because he didn't have the luxury of running home and locking the world away in a neat little box. No, he was going to Gibbs' place and he was going to…

He didn't know what.

But he did know that there was no way in hell that he could stand a night similar to his day, tossing multiple scenarios over and over in his mind, twisting himself into knot after knot. Gibbs was suspended because of him, the least he could do was pay the man a visit. The journey took a lot longer than it should have, and the loitering that took place in the car outside took a _hell_ of a lot longer than it ever should have.

He didn't knock.

Things were weird enough.

The sounds of saw on wood were emitting loud and clear from the basement. Gibbs was working out his frustrations, no doubt. Holding his breath unconsciously, Tony padded across the living room floor and descended the familiar stairs with an uncomfortable flutter in his stomach. The sounds of strenuous DIY didn't falter as he emerged onto the sawdust strewn floor. Glancing up and seeming utterly unsurprised by his visitor, Gibbs slowly set the saw down and raised a brow.

"Tony," he greeted evenly, "Everything ok?"

Shaking his head silently, the SFA couldn't find the words.

"Sit," Gibbs instructed quietly, pushing out a nearby stool and reaching for the customary mason jars, efficiently sloshing bourbon into them as the younger agent slowly inched himself down across from him, accepting the drink with soft thanks.

"Something eating you?"

As always, in all things, Gibbs was direct as direct could be.

Tony allowed himself a small, wry smile at that.

"Guess I'm still feeling pretty shitty about how today went down, Boss. You're suspended because of me, the girls and Tim are upset and confused and… I don't know… it's all messed up… all of it, completely messed up…"

Gibbs eyed him with that look that could see straight through walls.

"It's messed up… or we're messed up?"

Tony snorted over his drink.

"You're a lot cleverer than you let on, you know that?"

Gibbs smirked a knowing smirk.

"If they know you're clever, it's not as much fun when you decide to be clever."

"I'll remember that," Tony said dryly, "It could come in handy."

Under Gibbs' silent nod, the room fell quiet, each man lost to his own thoughts. Gibbs, for his part, was swathed in a prickly blanket of regret and guilt, the vintage kind. Tony was still a hot mess, and it was his fault. Of the two of them, DiNozzo was the agent who could control himself in the tougher cases, who could compose himself to achieve a greater end, whilst keeping the means in check. To see him fly at Gerald had been a shock, a shocking shock. And it was his fault, he had done that, he _had_ attacked Gerald, just like he'd told Vance. Sure, Tony might have been the puppet, but he was definitely the one pulling the strings.

"Do you think I should transfer, Gibbs?"

The question struck the older man like a bolt of white-hot lightning.

His lungs quivered under the lack of oxygen he sent them.

"Transfer?" he barked, "Why the hell would you transfer?"

The kid shot him an incredulous look as his eyes widened.

"Seriously? Did you see what happened today? Did you hear the things I said to you? I thought we were moving on, Boss, I really did. I thought we were getting there, that the past was becoming the past. But the first time I was tested on that theory, I failed. I failed the damned test, I bombed it. And now, you're suspended, another black mark in your jacket, and it's because of me. What happens the next time? You take the rap for something else and get yourself fired? What kind of a working relationship is that, what kind of a relationship is that?"

He shook his head, glancing down at his amber drink.

"You could've been fired today, Boss. And all because of me…. I can't live with that."

Gibbs carded a hand through his hair in frustration.

"Tony, I could've been fired today, that's true, but it wouldn't have been because of _you_. It would have been because of me and me alone. I'm the reason you did what you did today. You've always been level-headed in tough interrogations, you've always been the one to pull me back from the ledge. The reason you couldn't be that person today, is me. In your head, Gerald was me and you were the kid he was talking about. Your reaction was understandable, hell, it was instinctual, and I don't blame you for it. I've messed with your head, I've twisted things inside and out, and that's not your bad… that's my bad… and all the natural consequences from that are mine and mine alone to bear…"

He raised a brow at a bewildered looking Tony.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Not really, no," the younger man blurted out, "That's a lot of words for you."

"Tony, what I'm trying to tell you is this; I did something terrible to you. I abused you and I violated the trust you have in me. I know you thought we were moving on and things were getting back to normal, but the reality is… it's going to take a lot longer than the time that's passed. There'll be good days and there'll be bad days, there'll be days that are somewhere in between. Those days will be there until gradually, they fade away, and all that's left is a memory that you can't erase, but it can't hurt you, either. What I'm saying is… these kinds of speedbumps were always going to happen. We just need to ride them out, if of course, you're willing to continue extending that second chance you offered…"

Tony's mouth slumped open in shock.

Gibbs… Gibbs was _loquacious_ when he wanted to be.

His thoughts must have flashed across his face because the man himself laughed softly.

"I suffer from selective mutism, Tony, not total mutism."

"That's a revelation in and of itself."

Suddenly feeling the need to be alone, the younger man stood from his stool and took a deep breath. Tiredness suddenly itched at his eyes. Bed. He wanted to go to bed, to switch his mind off. Gibbs didn't object as he watched him rise. Silence spiralled between them for a moment, before Tony tentatively broke it and spoke softly, but clearly.

"You're sure the team isn't to know the truth?"

Gibbs nodded vehemently.

"It's for the best. Too messy otherwise, unless, you want to tell them. In which case, you are more than free to do so. More than free…"

He meant that.

He really did.

Whatever Tony needed, he was going to get.

Period.

"No," his protégé murmured, "I'd rather they didn't know… it's easier that way…"

"They'll never hear it from me, Tony, you have my word. And you might like to know, Vance cooled his heels a little and gave me a call. My suspension is for two weeks, it's a slap on the wrist. I'll be back before you know it and the… status quo can be reaffirmed, as much as possible. But, I have some vacation time owing, and I could take that… if a little breathing space is what you need?"

Tony's eyes lit up with relief as he shook his head firmly.

"No. The sooner you're back, the better."

Gibbs smiled softly.

"Sounds good to me."

Nodding almost shyly, Tony felt the desire for closure. For a sense of beginning, middle and end. He swallowed and before he knew what he was doing, he was extending a hand to his unexpecting boss, who immediately grasped it in a handshake from sheer instinct.

"Can we close the lid on this particular speedbump and wipe the slate clean again?"

Gibbs stood and with a lighter heart, firmed up their handshake a serious notch.

"I'd like that, Tony, hell, I'd _really_ like that."

…

A/N: Slowly rediscovering my NCIS mojo through watching the earlier seasons! Hopefully more updates on the horizon!

Thank you for your patience.

Inks x

….


End file.
